Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1886-1887

TABLE OF CONTENTS (With date of Original Publication)

Foreword Chronological Survey

[1924 and 1886]

To Theosophists and Men of Honour [Madame Blavatsky’s Protest]

January, February and March 1886

Hava Animals Souls?

January, 1886

“Isis Unveiled” and the Viśishtadvâita

March, 1886

A Theosophical Fable

April and May, 1886

Occult or Exact Science?

October, 1886

Ancient Magic in Modern Science

[1897]

Egyptian Magic [Compiler’s Notes]

[1924 and 1931]

[The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society]: Compiler’s Notes A Few Words on The Theosophical Organization (by Mohini M. Chatterji and Arthur Gebhard) Text of the “Original Programme” Manuscript Some Words on Daily Life (1888)

November, 1886

Theories About Reincarnation and Spirits

[January, 1887]

An Important Correction

[November, 1891]

Chinese Spirits [Compiler’s Notes]

November, 1886

Animated Statues

[1897]

The Idols and the Teraphim

December, 1886

“The Theosophical Mahatmas” Miscellaneous Notes

[May, 1892]

The Kabalah and the Kabalists at the Close of the Nineteenth Century

[August, 1896]

Fragments

April, 1887

Footnotes to “The Life of Paracelsus” Classification of “Principles” [H. P. Blavatsky’s Instructions to Countess Constance Wachtmeister, concerning the Removal of her Body after Death]

May, 1887 “United” June, 1887

Juges ou Calomniateurs? Judges or Slanderers? August, 1887

Re-Classification of Principles

APPENDIX: Note on the Transliteration of Sanskrit

ILLUSTRATIONS: H. P. B. at “Maycot,” Norwood, London Alfred Percy Sinnett Commandant D. A. Courmes Arthur Gebhard-L’Estrange George R. S. Mead H. P. B. at her desk, 17, Lansdowne Road, London Interior at 17, Lansdowne Road, London Countess Constance Wachtmeister Dr. Annie Besant, Col. Henry S. Olcott and William Quan Judge Marie, Countess of Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar Isabel de Steiger

FACSIMILES Last page of one of H. P. B.’s Manuscripts Crucifixion in Space H. P. B.’s Instruction to Countess C. Wachtmeister

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1886

TO THEOSOPHISTS AND MEN OF HONOUR

[The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A.. P. Sinnett, pp. 136-139]

[In his Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky (London: George Redway, 1886), A. P. Sinnett, writing on the subject of H.P.B.’s reaction to Richard Hodgson’s slanderous Report, says (p. 304): “The letters, memoranda, and protests on which she wasted her energies during this memorable fortnight were few, if any, of a kind that would have helped a cold and unsympathetic public to understand the truth of things, and it is not worth while to resuscitate them here. I induced her to tone down one protest into a presentable shape for insertion in a pamphlet I issued in the latter part of January (1886), and for the rest, few but her most intimate friends would correctly appreciate their fire and fury. . . .”

Evidently, the statement reproduced below is the protest spoken of by Sinnett, before it was “toned down.” It was originally published with the above title in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1924), pp. 136-139. It was written by H.P.B. on or about January 1st, 1886, as it is directly connected with her letter to A. P. Sinnett bearing this date and dealing with Hodgson’s Report just then received by her.

Immediately following it, we publish the “toned down” version, reproduced from A. P. Sinnett’s pamphlet entitled The “Occult World Phenomena” and the Society for Psychical Research (London: George Redway, 1886. 60 pages).––Compiler.]

The long threatened report by Hodgson—the agent sent in 1884 by the S.P.R. to India to investigate certain phenomena alleged by the Coulombs to have been fraudulently produced by them at the instigation of the undersigned, who was directly and indirectly connected with such occult occurrences—has come out.

The undersigned denies most solemnly the charges brought forward in the said Report against her, in addition to which—an implied fraud throughout—she is called in it more than once “forger” and a “Russian Spy.”

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There is not in that voluminous report one single charge that could stand a legal investigation and be shown correct. All in it is personal inference, hypothesis and unwarranted assumptions and conclusions. Every sentence in it is arbitrary and libellous in the extreme, according to law—brutal and calumniating, in the sight of every unprejudiced witness acquainted with the facts that preceded the investigation and led to the Report. Only a few of the phenomena, those with which the Coulombs were well acquainted—are given in it in a distorted way, so as to meet the theory of Deception. The two thirds of the phenomena brought forward by the Theosophists, the most important as the most unanswerable are silently skipped over. Only, and in case they should be some day placed before the public as a counterproof—the witnesses to such are pelted with mud before hand, and an attempt is made to show them untrustworthy.

The said Hodgson had come to India as a friend; he was received as one, lived in the greatest intimacy with those he now accuses of confederacy and lying. None, during the time he lived at Adyar regarded by all as a perfectly honourable man, had the remotest conception that much that was said by him in private conversations, every idle word that no one thought at the time of weighing, would be later on made public, another sense given to it, and that his words would be made use of against the Society. Every facility was given to him for investigation—nothing concealed from him, as everyone felt and knew himself quite innocent of the absurd charges made. All this is now taken advantage of, and presented in an unfavourable light before the public.

CONSIDERING ALL THIS, and that the said Hodgson and whoever may have sanctioned his indelicate proceedings and urged, or helped him on, has—

(1) Given out in his Report nought but the evidence of malevolently disposed witnesses—bitter enemies for years; gossips, and long standing falsehoods invented by the Coulombs and his own personal inferences and made up theories; and that on the other hand he has unjustly

TO THEOSOPHISTS AND MEN OF HONOUR 5

suppressed every title of evidence in my favour and where he could not make away with such testimony he has invariably tried to represent my witnesses and defenders as either dupes or confederates. (2) That besides the Coulomb letters, the full authorship of which I deny as I did on the day of their appearance, not one of which, moreover, was I permitted to see in the original; that besides these I say—(a) a number of private letters or passages therefrom, isolated, and therefore liable to any construction—are published, such publication being actionable by law; (3) That a slip from a MS page, confessedly stolen, by the woman Coulomb from my writing desk years ago; evidently the translation from some passage in a Russian Daily, a number of articles from which I have been translating for the Pioneer, asked to do so by Mr. Sinnett in 1881-2-3. That again, that isolated fragment (not my composition evidently, as the quotation mark at the end of it happily left––shows) is reproduced with the manifest intention of throwing a vile suspicion upon me as being a “Russian Spy.” (4) That the said Hodgson and his employers know the position I am in (having been repeatedly told the reasons why I could not prosecute the Coulombs, reasons known as well to every theosophist and that I am not ashamed to confess); and that knowing this—i.e. that I am utterly helpless and defenceless in England and India as a hated Russian and as a hated theosophist—they did not hesitate to take advantage of their position to dishonour with the utmost impunity a woman by branding her as a spy and a forger. (5) Considering also, that if I am unable to prove the reality of the phenomena produced in any Court of law, no more can Hodgson & Co. prove their unreality otherwise than on circumstantial evidence and their own prejudged ideas; but that the charge of my ever being a Spy could, on the other hand, be easily shown groundless, false and libellous; they still support their malicious allegations—just because they can do so with perfect impunity and that it suits them at the present moment, when all England rises

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against and suspects Russia—as nothing can ruin me more efficiently in public opinion; this special charge, moreover, being the only one that could prove an anchor of salvation for their Report, as a motive had to be given for a series of frauds and deception covering ten years of incessant labour, poverty, struggles at the expense of health and the last money we had. Considering all this, and much more, what is the conclusion an honest man can arrive at, who, acquainted with the real facts, reads their Report? Assuredly the following: the accusations, all Mr. Hodgson’s cleverness notwithstanding, could not stand unless a logical motive could be found for such disgusting dishonourable course as the one I am charged with. The true motive—publicly and openly professed gave the lie to all such accusations; it weakened thoroughly if it did not destroy utterly the filthy charges. Why not present those charges in a light that best calculated to have them accepted without one word of protest by the public in general? This could be perpetrated with impunity and it only ruins me for life alone. It only shuts the doors before me, back to my home where I thought of dying in peace knowing I had done my duty the best I could. What does it matter to the Honourable professors at Cambridge that an old Russian woman has not but one course opened to her: to die a disgraced beggar, far from all she loves and cares for in this life, so long as they can satisfy their spite and punish those who refused to recognise in Mr. Hodgson, an infallible expert and in themselves as infallible leaders in things psychic and phenomenal. Well they have probably done all this: let them triumph in their iniquity.

This is an action that every honest man or woman must and will regard as simply infamous.

Thus, considering finally, !that if the Report is an alleged expression of the writer’s great integrity, of his mistaken, yet sincere and honest views (which I now deny), that it might have been published in toto in order to set off his extraordinary acuteness and still lose nothing in strength of deduction and inferences if

TO THEOSOPHISTS AND MEN OF HONOUR 7

the direct charge of forgery and spying—(the terms “forger” and “spy”) had been even laid aside; but that it was not done for reasons above given, and the libellous and incriminating terms are there published for the whole world to see and accept; considering all this I, the undersigned, now call upon every truth and justice loving Englishman and Englishwoman in the United Kingdom of Great Britain—whose righteous laws command to regard as innocent even a criminal before he is found by that law “guilty”—to show to me reasons why the said Hodgson and his employers should not be proclaimed publicly and in print by me as having been guilty of a mean, cowardly, base and a brutal action; one to stoop to which no gentleman, no honest man of even an average honourability would ever stoop to, in view of the existing circumstances.

In view of all the above I pray the London Lodge Theosophical Society to permit the undersigned, putting the present in a more grammatical and documentary form, to print and publish it and send it to every theosophist throughout the world; also to have the same published in The Theosophist.

So long as I have not broken altogether from the Theosophical Society and am connected with it; so long as any of my actions can by reacting upon it hurt the Cause or one of the Societies, I shall take no action that is not sanctioned by all the Councils. But if this is refused to me and I have to go about to the end of my life with the triple brand of Fraud, Forger and Spy upon me like a female Cain, helpless and powerless to even prove that the latter accusation is an infamous, uncalled for lie and a calumny, then it will remain for me but to take another course from which there will be no more return possible. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1886

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MADAME BLAVATSKY’S PROTEST

[From a Pamphlet entitled The “Occult World Phenomena” and the Society for Psychical Research, by A. P. Sinnett, London: George Redway, 1886, pp. 49-53.]

The “Society for Psychical Research” have now published the Report made to one of their Committees by Mr. Hodgson, the agent sent out to India to investigate the character of certain phenomena, described as having taken place at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society in India and elsewhere, and with the production of some of which I have been directly or indirectly concerned. This Report imputes to me a conspiracy with the Coulombs and several Hindus to impose on the credulity of various persons around me by fraudulent devices, and declares to be genuine, a series of letters alleged to be written by me to Mme. Coulomb in connection with the supposed conspiracy, which letters I have already myself declared to be in large part fabrications. Strange to say, from the time the investigation was begun, fourteen months ago, and to this day, when I am declared guilty by my self-instituted judges, I was never permitted to see those incriminating letters. I draw the attention of every fair-minded and honourable Englishman to this fact.

Without at present going into a minute examination of the errors, inconsistencies, and bad reasoning of this Report, I wish to make as publicly as possible my indignant and emphatic protest against the gross aspersions thus put upon me by the Committee of the Psychic Research Society at the instigation of the single, incompetent, and unfair inquirer whose conclusions they have accepted. There is no charge against me in the whole of the present Report that could stand the test of an impartial inquiry on the spot, where my own explanations could be checked by the examination of witnesses. They have been developed in Mr. Hodgson’s own mind, and kept back from my friends and colleagues while he remained at Madras abusing the hospitality and unrestrained assistance in his inquiries supplied to him at the Headquarters of the Society at Adyar, where he took up the attitude of a

MADAME BLAVATSKY’S PROTEST 9

friend, though he now represents the persons with whom he thus associated—as cheats and liars. These charges are now brought forward supported by the one-sided evidence collected by him, and when the time has gone by at which even he could be confronted with antagonistic evidence and with arguments which his very limited knowledge of the subject he attempted to deal with do not supply him. Mr. Hodgson having thus constituted himself prosecutor and advocate in the first instance, and having dispensed with a defence in the complicated transactions he was investigating, finds me guilty of all the offences he has imputed to me in his capacity as judge, and declares that I am proved to be an arch-impostor. The Committee of the P.R.S. have not hesitated to accept the general substance of the judgment which Mr. Hodgson thus pronounces, and have insulted me publicly by giving their opinion in favour of their agent’s conclusions—an opinion which rests wholly and solely on the Report of their single deputy. Wherever the principles of fairness and honourable care for the reputation of slandered persons may be understood, I think the conduct of the Committee will be regarded with some feeling resembling the profound indignation of which I am sensible. That Mr. Hodgson’s elaborate but misdirected inquiries, his affected precision, which spends infinite patience over trifles and is blind to facts of importance, his contradictory reasoning and his manifold incapacity to deal with such problems as those he endeavoured to solve, will be exposed by other writers in due course—I make no doubt. Many friends who know me better than the Committee of the P.R.S. will remain unaffected by the opinions of that body, and in their hands I must leave my much abused reputation But one passage in this monstrous Report I must, at all events, answer in my own name. Plainly alive to the comprehensive absurdity of his own conclusions about me as long as they remained totally unsupported by any theory of a motive which could account for my life-long devotion to my Theosophical work

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at the sacrifice of my natural place in society in my own country, Mr. Hodgson has been base enough to concoct the assumption that I am a Russian political agent, inventing a sham religious movement for the sake of undermining the British Government in India! Availing himself, to give colour to this hypothesis, of an old bit of my writing, apparently supplied to him by Mme. Coulomb, but which he did not know to be as it was, a fragment of an old translation I made for The Pioneer from some Russian travels in Central Asia, Mr. Hodgson has promulgated this theory about me in the Report, which the gentlemen of the P.R.S. have not been ashamed to publish. Seeing that I was naturalised nearly eight years ago a citizen of the United States, which led to my losing every right to my pension of 5,000 roubles yearly as the widow of a high official in Russia; that my voice has been invariably raised in India to answer all native friends that bad as I think the English Government in some respects—by reason of its unsympathetic character—the Russian would be a thousand times worse; that I wrote letters to that effect to Indian friends before I left America on my way to India, in 1879; that every one familiar with my pursuits and habits and very undisguised life in India, is aware that I have no taste for or affinity with politics whatever, but an intense dislike to them; that the Government of India, which suspected me as a spy because I was a Russian when I first went to India, soon abandoned its needless espionnage, and has never, to my knowledge, had the smallest inclination to suspect me since—the Russian spy theory about me which Mr. Hodgson has thus resuscitated from the grave, where it had been buried with ridicule for years, will merely help to render his extravagant conclusions about me more stupid even than they would have been otherwise in the estimation of my friends and of all who really know me. But looking upon the character of a spy with the disgust which only a Russian who is not one can feel, I am impelled irresistibly to repudiate Mr. Hodgson’s groundless and infamous calumny with a concentration of the general contempt his method of procedure in this inquiry seems

MADAME BLAVATSKY’S PROTEST 11

to me to merit, and to be equally deserved by the Committee of the Society he has served. They have shown themselves, by their wholesale adoption of his blunders, a group of persons less fitted to explore the mysteries of psychic phenomena than I should have thought—in the present day, after all that has been written and published on the subject of late years—could have been found among educated men in England.

Mr. Hodgson knows, and the Committee doubtless share his knowledge, that he is safe from actions for libel at my hands, because I have no money to conduct costly proceedings (having given all I ever had to the cause I serve), and also because my vindication would involve the examination into psychic mysteries which cannot be dealt fairly with in a court of law; and again because there are questions which I am solemnly pledged never to answer, but which a legal investigation of these slanders would inevitably bring to the front, while my silence and refusal to answer certain queries would be misconstrued into “contempt of court.” This condition of things explains the shameless attack that has been made upon an almost defenceless woman, and the inaction in face of it to which I am so cruelly condemned. H. P. BLAVATSKY. Jan. 14, 1886

Collected Writings Volume VII

FOREWORD TO VOLUME SEVEN

The writings contained in the present volume follow in direct chronological order those in Volume VI, published in December, 1954. The English translation of the first French essay is that of the late Dr. Charles J. Ryan, of Point Loma, California, and the translation of the second is by the Compiler; both have been carefully checked by Irene R. Ponsonby.

With the present Volume, the publication of the Collected Writings is being undertaken by The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India, at the suggestion of our esteemed Brother and Friend, N. Sri Ram, President of The Theosophical Society, Adyar. His offer to undertake the publication of the remaining volumes in this Series comes as a fitting culmination to many years of valuable collaboration between the Officials of The Theosophical Society, Adyar, and the Compiler. It augurs well for the ultimate success of the entire venture, and contributes greatly towards an earlier completion of the task at hand. Since the business arrangements will now be in the hands of a well-established and deservedly renowned Publishing House, tracing its lineage to the early years of the Theosophical Movement, the actual preparation of further MSS can proceed more rapidly.

In addition to persons already mentioned in the Foreword to Volume VI, grateful acknowledgment is made of the willing help received in the preparation of the MSS from Verna Ott, Edythe S. Mallory, Henriette de Hoog, Dara Rittenhouse, Alex Wayman, George Hubert; and of the valuable assistance of Frank Connelly, Librarian, Scottish Rite Library, Los Angeles, Calif.; Earl B. Delzell, Grand-Secretary and Librarian, Grand Lodge of Iowa, A. F. and A. M., Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Robert B. Cross, Asst. Prof. Classical Languages, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif; Dr. Raymond D. Harriman, Dpt. of Classics, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.; The Rev. Chancellor C. T. Dimont, Librarian, Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, England; R. O. Dongan, Librarian, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; Lama Tokwan Tada, Chiba, japan; Rabbi jacob Sonderling, Los Angeles, Calif.; Helen Luitwieler, Librarian, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.; Margaret 1. Smith, Chief Reference Librarian, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Dr. Arthur D. Nock, Dpt. of Classics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Miss Leslie Zeigler, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, Cali£; W. C. Helmboldt, Asst. Prof. of Classics, Univ. of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Flora A. Deibert, Reference Librarian, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penna.; Dr. Herbert B. Hoffleit Dpt., of Classics, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.

BORIS DE ZIRKOFF, Compiler LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. January 19, 1956.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII January, February and March, 1886

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HAVE ANIMALS SOULS?

[This remarkable article is mentioned by H.P.B. in a letter she wrote to A. P. Sinnett from Würzburg, Germany. The letter is undated. Mary K. Neff provisionally dates it as of November, 1885. It was originally published in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (New York: Frederick A. Stokes; London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1925), pp. 243-244. It begins with the following words: “ Sent to Mohini art: ‘Have animals Souls’ to correct. Ask him to bring it to you and see pp. he was told to show to you. There you shall find in the Sishtas (or remnants) spoken how near the truth came our mutual friend A.P.S. in his ‘Noah’s Ark Theory’.” While it may not be possible any longer to ascertain the correct date when this article was written, it is safe to assume that it must have been penned by H.P.B. sometime in the Fall of 1885. It was in August of that year that she moved to Würzburg.

All references appearing in footnotes within square brackets are added by the Compiler, as a help to students. H.P.B. frequently quotes from one of the best known works of the Marquis Eudes de Mirville, entitled Pneumatologie—Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Diverses. This work is divided into separate volumes and the test is divided into “tomes” which do not correspond to the numbered volumes. This should be borne in mind to avoid confusion. Vide Bio-Bibliographical Index for complete data regarding this work.––Compiler.] I [The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 76, January, 1886, pp. 243-249]

“Continually soaked with blood, the whole earth is but an immense altar upon which all that lives has to be immolated, endlessly, incessantly. . . .”

—Comte Joseph De Maistre, Soirées de Saint Petersbourg, Vol. II, p. 35.

Many are the “antiquated religious superstitions” of the East which Western nations often and unwisely deride: but none is so laughed at and practically set at defiance as the great respect of Oriental people for animal life. Flesh-eaters cannot sympathize with total abstainers from meat. We Europeans are nations of civilized barbarians with but a few millenniums between ourselves and our cave-dwelling forefathers who sucked the blood

HAVE ANIMALS SOULS? 13

and marrow from uncooked bones. Thus, it is only natural that those who hold human life so cheaply in their frequent and often iniquitous wars, should entirely disregard the death-agonies of the brute creation, and daily sacrifice millions of innocent, harmless lives; for we are too epicurean to devour tiger steaks or crocodile cutlets, but must have tender lambs and golden-feathered pheasants. All this is only as it should be in our era of Krupp cannons and scientific vivisectors. Nor is it a matter of great wonder that the hardy European should laugh at the mild Hindu, who shudders at the bare thought of killing a cow, or that he should refuse to sympathize with the Buddhist and Jain, in their respect for the life of every sentient creature—from the elephant to the gnat. But, if meat-eating has indeed become a vital necessity —“the tyrant’s plea”!—among Western nations; if hosts of victims in every city, borough and village of the civilized world must needs be daily slaughtered in temples dedicated to the deity, denounced by St. Paul and worshipped by men “whose God is their belly”:—if all this and much more cannot be avoided in our “age of Iron,” who can urge the same excuse for sport? Fishing, shooting, and hunting, the most fascinating of all the “amusements” of civilized life—are certainly the most objectionable from the standpoint of occult philosophy, the most sinful in the eyes of the followers of these religious systems which are the direct outcome of the Esoteric Doctrine—Hinduism and Buddhism. Is it altogether without any good reason that the adherents of these two religions, now the oldest in the world, regard the animal world—from the huge quadruped down to the infinitesimally small insect—as their “younger brothers,” however ludicrous the idea to a European? This question shall receive due consideration further on.

Nevertheless, exaggerated as the notion may seem, it is certain that few of us are able to picture to ourselves without shuddering the scenes which take place early every morning in the innumerable shambles of the

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so-called civilized world, or even those daily enacted during the “shooting season.” The first sun-beam has not yet awakened slumbering nature, when from all points of the compass myriads of hecatombs are being prepared to salute the rising luminary. Never was heathen Moloch gladdened by such a cry of agony from his victims as the pitiful wail that in all Christian countries rings like a long hymn of suffering throughout nature, all day and every day from morning until evening. In ancient Sparta—than whose stern citizens none were ever less sensitive to the delicate feelings of the human heart—a boy, when convicted of torturing an animal for amusement, was put to death as one whose nature was so thoroughly villainous that he could not be permitted to live. But in civilized Europe—rapidly progressing in all things save Christian virtues—might remains unto this day the synonym of right. The entirely useless, cruel practice of shooting for mere sport countless hosts of birds and animals is nowhere carried on with more fervour than in Protestant England, where the merciful teachings of Christ have hardly made human hearts softer than they were in the days of Nimrod, “ the mighty hunter before the Lord.” Christian ethics are as conveniently turned into paradoxical syllogisms as those of the “heathen.” The writer was told one day by a sportsman that since “not a sparrow falls on the ground without the will of the Father,” he who kills for sport—say, one hundred sparrows—does thereby one hundred times over—his Father’s will! A wretched lot is that of poor brute creatures, hardened as it is into implacable fatality by the hand of man. The rational soul of the human being seems born to become the murderer of the irrational soul of the animal—in the full sense of the word, since the Christian doctrine teaches that the soul of the animal dies with its body. Might not the legend of Cain and Abel have had a dual signification? Look at that other disgrace of our cultured age—the scientific slaughter-houses called “vivisection rooms.” Enter one of those halls in Paris, and behold Paul Bert, or some other of these men—so justly called “the learned

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butchers of the Institute”—at his ghastly work. I have but to translate the forcible description of an eye-witness, one who has thoroughly studied the modus operandi of those “executioners,” a well-known French author:

[Vivisection] is a specialty of the scientific slaughter-houses in which torture, scientifically economised by our butcher-academicians, is applied during whole days, weeks, and even months to the fibres and muscles of one and the same victim. It [torture] makes use of every and any kind of weapon, performs its analysis before a pitiless audience, divides the task every morning between ten apprentices at once, of whom one works on the eye, another one on the leg, the third on the brain, a fourth on the marrow; and whose inexperienced hands succeed, nevertheless, towards night after a hard day’s work, in laying bare the whole of the living carcass they had been ordered to chisel out, and that in the evening is carefully stored away in the cellar, in order that early next morning it may be worked upon again if only there is a breath of life and sensibility left in the victim! We know that the trustees of the Grammont law (loi) have tried to rebel against this abomination; but Paris showed herself more inexorable than London and Glasgow.*

And yet these gentlemen boast of the grand object pursued, and of the grand secrets discovered by them. “Horror and lies!”––exclaims the same author.

In the matter of secrets—a few localisations of faculties and cerebral motions excepted—we know but of one secret that belongs to them by rights: it is the secret of torture eternalised, besides which the terrible natural law of autophagy (mutual manducation), the horrors of war, the merry massacres of sport, and the sufferings of the animal under the butcher’s knife—are as nothing! Glory to our men of science! They have surpassed every former kind of torture, and remain now and for ever, without any possible contestation, the kings of artificial anguish and despair!†

The usual plea for butchering, killing, and even for legally torturing animals—as in vivisection—is a verse or two in the Bible, and its ill-digested meaning, disfigured by the so-called scholasticism represented by Thomas –––––––––– * Eudes de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, Appendix G, pp. 160-61. † Ibid, p. 161. ––––––––––

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Aquinas. Even de Mirville, that ardent defender of the rights of the church, calls such texts— ...... Biblical tolerances, forced from God after the deluge, as so many others, and based upon the decadence of our strength.* However this may be, such texts are amply contradicted by others in the same Bible. The meat-eater, the sportsman and even the vivisector—if there are among the last named those who believe in special creation and the Bible––generally quote for their justification that verse in Genesis in which God gives dual Adam—“dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (i, 28); hence—as the Christian understands it—power of life and death over every animal on the globe. To this the far more philosophical Brahman and Buddhist might answer: “Not so. Evolution starts to mould future humanities within the lower scales of being. Therefore by killing an animal, or even an insect, we arrest the progress of an entity towards its final goal in nature—MAN”; and to this the student of occult philosophy may say “Amen,” and add that it not only retards the evolution of that entity, but arrests that of the next succeeding human and more perfect race to come. Which of the opponents is right, which of them the more logical? The answer depends mainly, of course, on the personal belief of the intermediary chosen to decide the questions. If he believes in special creation—so-called—then in answer to the plain question—“Why should homicide be viewed as a most ghastly sin against God and nature, and the murder of millions of living creatures be regarded as mere sport?”—he will reply:— “Because man is created in God’s own image and looks upward to his Creator and to his birth-place—heaven (os homini sublime dedit),† and that the gaze of the animal –––––––––– * Loc. cit. † [Ovid, Metamorphoses, lib. I, Fab. ii, 85-86: “os homini sublime dedit: coelumque tueri jussit, et erectos sidera tollere vultus.” “He gave to man a lofty countenance, and bade him look to the heavens, and turn his gaze upward to the stars.”––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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is fixed downward on its birth-place—the earth; for God said—‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind’ (Genesis, i, 24).” Again, “because man is endowed with an immortal soul, and the dumb brute has no immortality, not even a short survival after death.”

Now to this an unsophisticated reasoner might reply that if the Bible is to be our authority upon this delicate question, there is not the slightest proof in it that man’s birth-place is in heaven any more than that of the last of creeping things—quite the contrary; for we find in Genesis that if God created “man” and blessed “them” (i, 27-28) so he created “great whales” and “blessed them” (i, 21-22). Moreover, “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (ii, 7); and “dust” is surely earth pulverized? Solomon, the king and preacher, is most decidedly an authority and admitted on all hands to have been the wisest of the Biblical sages; and he gives utterances to a series of truths in Ecclesiastes (ch. iii) which ought to have settled by this time every dispute upon the subject. “The sons of men . . . . might see that they themselves are beasts” (iii, 18) . . . . “that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth the beasts . . . . . a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast” (iii, 19) . . . “all go into one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (iii, 20) . . . . “who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upwards, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downwards to the earth?” (iii, 21). Indeed, “who knoweth!” At any rate it is neither science nor “school divine.”

Were the object of these lines to preach vegetarianism on the authority of Bible or Veda, it would be a very easy task to do so. For, if it is quite true that God gave dual Adam—the “male and female” of Chapter I of Genesis—who has little to do with our henpecked ancestor of Chapter II—“dominion over every living thing,” yet we nowhere find that the “Lord God” commanded that Adam or the other to devour animal creation or destroy it for sport. Quite the reverse. For pointing to the

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vegetable kingdom and the “fruit of a tree yielding seed”—God says very plainly: “to you [men] it shall be for meat” (i. 29).

So keen was the perception of this truth among the early Christians that during the first centuries they never touched meat. In Octavius Tertullian writes to Minucius Felix:

...... we are not permitted either to witness, or even hear narrated (novere) a homicide, we Christians, who refuse to taste dishes in which animal blood may have been mixed.*

But the writer does not preach vegetarianism, simply defending “animal rights” and attempting to show the fallacy of disregarding such rights on Biblical authority. Moreover, to argue with those who would reason upon the lines of erroneous interpretations would be quite useless. One who rejects the doctrine of evolution will ever find his way paved with difficulties; hence, he will never admit that it is far more consistent with fact and logic to –––––––––– * [There seems to be some confusion here in connection with Tertullian. Octavius is a work written by Minucius Felix, who lived between the middle of the 2nd and the middle of the 3rd century A.D., and is concerned with a defence of Christianity. Tertullian does not figure in it at all. It is true, however, that scholars have detected a number of similarities between Octavius and Tertullian’s Apologeticus, where similar subjects are treated. The passage quoted by H.P.B. constitutes the last sentence of Chapter xxx of Octavius. This chapter is concerned mainly with a defence of the Christians against the accusation that their rites of initiation involved the slaughter of an infant and the eating of bread dipped in its blood. A similar passage can be found in Chapter IX of the Apologeticus. The Latin text of the passage from Octavius is as follows: “Nobis homicidium nec videre fas nec audire, tantumque ab humano sanguine cavemus, ut nec edulium pecorum in cibis sanguinem noverimus.” This is translated by R. E. Wallis (Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV) thus: “To us it is not lawful either to see or to hear of homicide; and so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.” ––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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regard physical man merely as the recognized paragon of animals, and the spiritual Ego that informs him as a principle midway between the soul of the animal and the deity. It would be vain to tell him that unless he accepts not only the verses quoted for his justification but the whole mass of contradictions and seeming absurdities in it—he will never obtain the key to the truth; for he will not believe it. Yet the whole Bible teems with charity to men and with mercy and love to animals. The original Hebrew text of Chapter xxiv of Leviticus is full of it. Instead of the verse 18 as translated in the Bible: “And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast,” in the original it stands: “Life for life,” or rather “soul for soul,” nephesh tachat nephesh.* And if the rigour of the law did not go to the extent of killing, as in Sparta, a man’s “soul” for a beast’s “soul”––still, even though he replaced the slaughtered soul by a living one, a heavy additional punishment was inflicted on the culprit.

But this was not all. In Exodus (xx, 10, and xxiii, 11-12) rest on the Sabbath day extended to cattle and every other animal. “The seventh day is the sabbath . . . . thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy . . . . cattle”; and the Sabbath year, “the seventh year thou shalt let it [the land] rest and lie still . . . . that thine ox and thine ass may rest”—which commandment, if it means anything, shows that even the brute creation was not excluded by the ancient Hebrews from a participation in the worship of their deity, and that it was placed upon many occasions on a par with man himself. The whole question rests upon the misconception that “soul,” nephesh, is entirely distinct from “spirit”—ruach. And yet it is clearly stated that “God breathed into the nostrils (of man) the breath of life and man became a living soul,” nephesh, neither more or less than an animal, for the soul of an animal is also called nephesh. It is by development that the soul becomes spirit, both being the lower and the –––––––––– * Compare also the difference between the translation of the same verses in the Vulgata, and the texts of Luther and De Wette. ––––––––––

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higher rungs of one and the same ladder whose basis is the UNIVERSAL SOUL or spirit.

This statement will startle those good men and women who, however much they may love their cats and dogs, are yet too much devoted to the teachings of their respective churches ever to admit such a heresy. “The irrational soul of a dog or a frog divine and immortal as our own souls are?”—they are sure to exclaim: but so they are. It is not the humble writer of the present article who says so, but no less an authority for every good Christian than that king of the preachers—St. Paul. Our opponents who so indignantly refuse to listen to the arguments of either modern or esoteric science may perhaps lend a more willing ear to what their own saint and apostle has to say on the matter; the true interpretation of whose words, moreover, shall be given neither by a theosophist nor an opponent, but by one who was as good and pious a Christian as any, namely, another saint—John Chrysostom—he who explained and commented upon the Pauline Epistles, and who is held in the highest reverence by the divines of both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches. Christians have already found that experimental science is not on their side; they may be still more disagreeably surprised upon finding that no Hindu could plead more earnestly for animal life than did St. Paul in writing to the Romans. Hindus indeed claim mercy to the dumb brute only on account of the doctrine of transmigration and hence of the sameness of the principle or element that animates both man and brute. St. Paul goes further: he shows [Rom., viii, 21] the animal hoping for, and living in the expectation of the same deliverance “from the bondage of corruption” as any good Christian. The precise. expressions of that great apostle and philosopher will be quoted later on in the present Essay and their true meaning shown.

The fact that so many interpreters—Fathers of the Church and scholastics—tried to evade the real meaning of St. Paul is no proof against its inner sense, but rather against the fairness of the theologians whose inconsistency

HAVE ANIMALS SOULS? 21

will be shown in this particular. But some people will support their propositions, however erroneous, to the last. Others, recognizing their earlier mistake, will, like Cornelius a Lapide, offer the poor animal amende honorable. Speculating upon the part assigned by nature to the brute creation in the great drama of life, he says:

The aim of all creatures is the service of man. Hence, together with him [their master] they are waiting for their renovation (cum homine renovationem suam exspectant).* “Serving” man, surely cannot mean being tortured, killed, uselessly shot and otherwise misused; while it is almost needless to explain the word “renovation.” Christians understand by it the renovation of bodies after the second coming of Christ; and limit it to man, to the exclusion of animals. The students of the Secret Doctrine explain it by the successive renovation and perfection of forms on the scale of objective and subjective being, and in a long series of evolutionary transformations from animal to man, and upward. This will, of course, be again rejected by Christians with indignation. We shall be told that it is not thus that the Bible was explained to them, nor can it ever mean that. It is useless to insist upon it. Many and sad in their results were the erroneous interpretations of that which people are pleased to call the “Word of God.” The sentence “cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren” (Gen., ix, 25)—generated centuries of misery and undeserved woe for the wretched slaves—the negroes. It is the clergy of the United States who were their bitterest enemies in the anti-slavery question, which question they opposed Bible in hand. Yet slavery is proved to have been the cause of the natural decay of every country; and even proud Rome fell because “the majority in the ancient world were slaves,” as Geijer justly remarks. But so terribly imbued at all –––––––––– * Comment. Apocal., ch. v, p. 137. [Quoted by de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 168. Probably Pélagaud’s edition.—Comp.] ––––––––––

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times were the best, the most intellectual Christians with those many erroneous interpretations of the Bible, that even one of their grandest poets, while defending the right of man to freedom, allots no such portion to the poor animal. He [God] gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation, but man over man He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.

—says Milton.*

But, like murder, error “will out,” an incongruity must unavoidably occur whenever erroneous conclusions are supported either against or in favour of a prejudged question. The opponents of Eastern philozoism thus offer their critics a formidable weapon to upset their ablest arguments by such incongruity between premises and conclusions, facts postulated and deductions made.

It is the purpose of the present Essay to throw a ray of light upon this most serious and interesting subject. Roman Catholic writers in order to support the genuineness of the many miraculous resurrections of animals produced by their saints, have made them the subject of endless debates. The “soul in animals” is, in the opinion of Bossuet, “the most difficult as the most important of all philosophical questions.”

Confronted with the doctrine of the Church that animals, though not soulless, have no permanent or immortal soul in them, and that the principle which animates them dies with the body, it becomes interesting to learn how the school-men and the Church divines reconcile this statement with that other claim that animals may be and have been frequently and miraculously resurrected.

Though but a feeble attempt—one more elaborate would require volumes—the present Essay, by showing –––––––––– * [Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 67-71.] ––––––––––

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the inconsistency of the scholastic and theological interpretations of the Bible, aims at convincing people of the great criminality of taking––especially in sport and vivisection—animal life. Its object, at any rate, is to show that however absurd the notion that either man or brute can be resurrected after the life-principle has fled from the body for ever, such resurrections—if they were true—would not be more impossible in the case of a dumb brute than in that of a man; for either both are endowed by nature with what is so loosely called by us “soul,” or neither the one nor the other is so endowed.

–––––––––– II [The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 77, February, 1886, pp. 295-302]

“What a chimera is man! what a confused chaos, what a subject of contradiction! a professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth! the great depository and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty! the glory and the scandal of the universe!”—PASCAL.

We shall now proceed to see what are the views of the Christian Church as to the nature of the soul in the brute, to examine how she reconciles the discrepancy between the resurrection of a dead animal and the assumption that its soul dies with it, and to notice some miracles in connection with animals. Before the final and decisive blow is dealt to that selfish doctrine, which has become so pregnant with cruel and merciless practices toward the poor animal world, the reader must be made acquainted with the early hesitations of the Fathers of the Patristic age themselves, as to the right interpretation of the words spoken with reference to that question by St. Paul. It is amusing to note how the Karma of two of the most indefatigable defenders of the Latin Church—Messrs. Des Mousseaux and De Mirville, in whose works the record of the few miracles here noted are found

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—led both of them to furnish the weapons now used against their own sincere but very erroneous views.* The great battle of the Future having to be fought out between the “ Creationists “ or the Christians, as all the believers in a special creation and a personal god, the Evolutionists or the Hindus, Buddhists, all the Freethinkers and last, though not least, most of the men of science, a recapitulation of their respective positions is advisable.

1. The Christian world postulates its right over animal life: (a) on the afore-quoted Biblical texts and the later scholastic interpretations; (b) on the assumed absence of anything like divine or human soul in animals. Man survives death, the brute does not.

2. The Eastern Evolutionists, basing their deductions upon their great philosophical systems, maintain it is a sin against nature’s work and progress to kill any living being—for reasons given in the preceding pages.

3. The Western Evolutionists, armed with the latest discoveries of science, heed neither Christians nor Heathens. Some scientific men believe in Evolution, others do not. They agree, nevertheless, upon one point: namely, that physical, exact research offers no grounds for the presumption that man is endowed with an immortal, divine soul, any more than his dog.

Thus, while the Asiatic Evolutionists behave toward animals consistently with their scientific and religious views, neither the church nor the materialistic school of science is logical in the practical applications of their respective theories. The former, teaching that every living thing is created singly and specially by God, as any human babe may be, and that it finds itself from birth to death under the watchful care of a wise and kind Providence, allows –––––––––– * It is but justice to acknowledge here that De Mirville is the first to recognize the error of the Church in this particular, and to defend animal life, as far as he dares do so. ––––––––––

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the inferior creation at the same time only a temporary soul. The latter, regarding both man and animal as the soulless production of some hitherto undiscovered forces in nature, yet practically creates an abyss between the two. A man of science, the most determined materialist, one who proceeds to vivisect a living animal with the utmost coolness, would yet shudder at the thought of laming—not to speak of torturing to death—his fellowman. Nor does one find among those great materialists who were religiously inclined men any who have shown themselves consistent and logical in defining the true moral status of the animal on this earth and the rights of man over it.

Some instances must now be brought to prove the charges stated. Appealing to serious and cultured minds it must be postulated that the views of the various authorities here cited are not unfamiliar to the reader. It will suffice therefore simply to give short epitomes of some of the conclusions arrived at—beginning with the Churchmen.

As already stated, the Church exacts belief in the miracles performed by her great Saints. Among the various prodigies accomplished we shall choose for the present only those that bear directly upon our subject—namely, the miraculous resurrections of dead animals. Now one who credits man with an immortal soul independent of the body it animates can easily believe that by some divine miracle the soul can be recalled and forced back into the tabernacle it deserts apparently forever. But how can one accept the same possibility in the case of an animal, since his faith teaches him that the animal has no independent soul, since it is annihilated with the body? For over two hundred years, ever since Thomas of Aquinas, the Church has authoritatively taught that the soul of the brute dies with its organism. What then is recalled back into the clay to reanimate it? It is at this juncture that scholasticism steps in, and—taking the difficulty in hand—reconciles the irreconcilable.

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It premises by saying that the miracles of the Resurrection of animals are numberless and as well authenticated as “the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”* The Bollandists give instances without number. As Father Burigny, a hagiographer of the 17th century, pleasantly remarks concerning the bustards resuscitated by St. Remi— I may be told, no doubt, that I am a goose myself to give credence to such “blue bird “ tales. . . . I shall answer the joker, in such a case, by saying that, if he disputes this point, then must he also strike out from the life of St. Isidore of Spain† the statement that he resuscitated from death his master’s horse; from the biography of St. Nicholas of Tolentino––that he brought back to life a partridge, instead of eating it; from that of St. Francis—that he recovered from the blazing coals of an oven, where it was baking, the body of a lamb, which he forthwith resurrected; and that he also made boiled fishes, which he resuscitated, swim in their sauce. . . . . Above all he [the sceptic] will have to charge more than one hundred thousand eye-witnesses—among whom at least a few ought to be allowed some common sense—with being either liars or dupes.‡ A far higher authority than Father Burigny, namely? Pope Benedict (Benoit) XIV, corroborates and affirms the above evidence. The names, moreover, as eye-witnesses to the resurrections, of Saint Sylvestrus, François de Paule, Severin of Cracow and a host of others are all mentioned in the Bollandists. “Only he adds,” says Cardinal de Ventura who quotes him— . . . . .that, as resurrection, however, to deserve the name requires the identical and numerical reproduction of the form,§ as much as of the material of the dead creature; and as that form (or soul) of the brute is always annihilated with its body according to St. Thomas’ doctrine, God, in every such case finds himself obliged to create for the purpose of the miracle a new form for the resurrected animal; –––––––––– * De Beatificatione, etc., by Pope Benedict XIV. [Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s.v. BENEDICT.—Comp.] † [Most likely Isidore of Seville, known also as Isidorus Hispalensis (ca. 570-636), renowned Spanish encyclopaedist and historian, and Archbishop of Seville.—Compiler.] ‡ [Quoted by de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, Appendix G, pp. 150-51.] § In scholastic philosophy, the word “ form” applies to the immaterial principle which informs or animates the body. ––––––––––

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from which it follows that the resurrected brute was not altogether identical with what it had been before its death (non idem omnino esse).*

Now this looks terribly like one of the mayas of magic. However, although the difficulty is not absolutely explained, the following is made clear: the principle, that animated the animal during its life, and which is termed soul, being dead or dissipated after the death of the body, another soul—“a kind of an informal soul”—as the Pope and the Cardinal tell us—is created for the purpose of miracle by God; a soul, moreover, which is distinct from that of man, which is “an independent, ethereal and everlasting entity.”

Besides the natural objection to such a proceeding being called a “miracle” produced by the saint, for it is simply God behind his back who “creates” for the purpose of his glorification an entirely new soul as well as a new body, the whole of the Thomasian doctrine is open to objection. For, as Descartes very reasonably remarks:

If the soul of the animal is distinct from its body (and is therefore immaterial), we believe it hardly possible not to recognize it as spiritual, and therefore intelligent.†

The reader need hardly be reminded that Descartes held the living animal as being simply an automaton, a “well wound up clock-work,” according to Malebranche. One, therefore, who adopts the Cartesian theory about the animal would do as well to accept at once the views of the modern materialists. For, since that automaton is capable of feelings, such as love, gratitude, etc., and is endowed as undeniably with memory, all such attributes must be as materialism teaches us “properties of matter.” But if the animal is an “automaton,” why not Man? Exact science—anatomy, physiology, etc.—finds not the smallest difference between the bodies of the two; and who knows—justly enquires Solomon—whether the spirit –––––––––– * De Beatificatione, etc., lib. IV, chap. xxi, art. 6. [quoted by de Mirville, ibid.] † [Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 152.] ––––––––––

28 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS of man “goeth upward” any more than that of the beast? Thus we find metaphysical Descartes as inconsistent as anyone.

But what does St. Thomas say to this? Allowing a soul (anima) to the brute, and declaring it immaterial, he refuses it at the same time the qualification of spiritual. Because he says: “it would in such case imply intelligence, a virtue and a special operation reserved only for the human soul.” * But as at the fourth Council of Lateran it had been decided that

. . . . God had created two distinct substances, the corporeal (mundanam) and the spiritual (spiritualem), and that something incorporeal must be of necessity spiritual. . .† –––––––––– * [Quoted in de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 153; no ref. to the writings of St. Thomas is given.] † [This refers to the First Capitulum of the Fourth Lateran Council (Twelfth General Council) held in 1215 A.D., in which occurs the following passage:

“. . . . . Pater generans, Filius nascens, et Spiritus sanctus procedens: consubstantiales et coaequales, coomnipotentes et coaeterni, unum universorum principium, creator omnium invisibilium et visibilium, spiritualium et corporalium, qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam, ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam. . .”

The Latin text of the entire Capitulum can be consulted in Carl Joseph von Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte (7 Vols. Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1855-74; 2nd ed., 1886. Engl. transl. as A History of Church Councils, Edinb., 1871, etc.), where it is to be found in Vol. 5, p. 879 of 2nd cd. Consult also G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 1759, etc., Vol. XXII, p. 982, or the new ed. of Paris, 1901, etc.

The Teaching of the Catholic Church, ed. by George Duncan Smith, (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1949), translates a portion of the above passage thus:

“. . . . . the Fourth Council of Lateran . . . . declared God to be the ‘one principle of all things, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who from the beginning of ––––––––––

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St. Thomas had to resort to a kind of compromise, which can avoid being called a subterfuge only when performed by a saint. He says:

This soul of the brute is neither spirit, nor body; it is of a middle nature. * This is a very unfortunate statement. For elsewhere, St. Thomas says that

. . . . . all the souls—even those of plants—have the substantial form of their bodies. . . † and if this is true of plants, why not of animals? It is certainly neither “spirit” nor pure matter, but of that essence which St. Thomas calls a “middle nature.” But why, once on the right path, deny its survivance—let alone immortality? The contradiction is so flagrant that de Mirville in despair exclaims,

Here we are, in the presence of three substances, instead of the two, as decreed by the Lateran Council! ‡

and proceeds forthwith to contradict, as much as he dares, the “Angelic Doctor.”

The great Bossuet in his Traité de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même analyses and compares the system of Descartes with that of St. Thomas. No one can find fault with him for giving the preference in the matter of logic to Descartes. He finds the Cartesian “invention”—that of the automaton—as “getting better out of the –––––––––– time, by his almighty power, created from nothing both the spiritual and the corporeal, that is the angelical and the mundane world of creatures, and finally human creatures, as if common to both worlds, being composed of body and spirit’.” —Compiler.]

* Quoted by Cardinal de Ventura in his Philosophie Chrétienne, Vol. II, p. 386; see also de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 153. † [Quoted by de Mirville, ibid., where ref. is made to p. 139 of de Ventura’s work.] ‡ [de Mirville, op. cit., p. 153.] ––––––––––

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difficulty” than that of St. Thomas, accepted fully by the Catholic Church; for which Father Ventura feels indignant against Bossuet for accepting “such a miserable and perilous error.” * And, though allowing the animals a soul with all its qualities of affection and sense, true to his master St. Thomas, he too refuses them intelligence and reasoning powers.

Bossuet, adds the Father, is the more to be blamed, since he himself has said: “I foresee that a great war is being prepared against the Church under the name of Cartesian philosophy.” †

He is right there, for out of the “sentient matter” of the brain of the brute animal comes out quite naturally Locke’s thinking matter, and out of the latter all the materialistic schools of our century. But when he fails, it is through supporting St. Thomas’ doctrine, which is full of flaws and evident contradictions. For, if the soul of the animal is, as the Roman Church teaches, an informal, immaterial principle, then it becomes evident that, being independent of physical organism, it cannot “die with the animal” any more than in the case of man. If we admit that it subsists and survives, in what respect does it differ from the soul of man? And that it is eternal—once we accept St. Thomas’ authority on any subject—though he contradicts himself elsewhere.

The soul of man is immortal, and the soul of the animal perishes,

he says (Summa, Vol. V, p. 164)—this, after having queried in Vol. II of the same grand work (p. 256) . . . . . are there any beings that re-emerge into nothingness? and answered himself:

No, for in the Ecclesiastes (iii, 14) it is said: “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” With God there “is no variableness.”(James, i, 17) –––––––––– * [ibid., where ref. is given to Ventura’s Phil. Chrét., II, 394.] † [ibid., p. 154; and Ventura, op. cit., II, 406.] ––––––––––

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“Therefore,” goes on St. Thomas,

neither in the natural order of things, nor by means of miracles, is there any creature that re-emerges into nothingness [is annihilated]; there is naught in the creature that is annihilated, for that which shows with the greatest radiance divine goodness is the perpetual conservation of the creatures.*

This sentence is commented upon and confirmed in the annotation by the Abbé Drioux, his translator. “No,” he remarks,

. . . nothing is annihilated; it is a principle that has become with modern science a kind of axiom. . . . †

And, if so, why should there be an exception made to this invariable rule in nature, recognized both by science and theology––only in the case of the soul of the animal? Even though it had no intelligence, an assumption from which every impartial thinker will ever and very strongly demur.

Let us see, however, turning from scholastic philosophy to natural sciences, what are the naturalist’s objections to the animal having an intelligent and therefore an independent soul in him.

Whatever that be, which thinks, which understands, which acts, it is something celestial and divine; and upon that account must necessarily be eternal, wrote Cicero, nearly two millenniums ago.‡ We should understand well, Mr. Huxley contradicting the conclusion, St. Thomas of Aquinas, the “king of the –––––––––– * Summa—Drioux edition in 8 vols. [These passages from St. Thomas are quoted by de Mirville, op.cit., p. 158. It is probable that he used the French translation of the Abbé Claude-Josèphe Drioux entitled La Somme Théologique de Saint Thomas, containing both the Latin and French texts. Two editions are known of this work, both in eight vols; the one is dated Paris, 1851-54, and the other, Barri-Ducis, 1864-65.––Comp.] † [de Mirville, op. cit., p. 158.] ‡ [This passage is from Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, I, xxvii (66), the original Latin text being: ––––––––––

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metaphysicians,” firmly believed in the miracles of resurrection performed by St. Patrick.* –––––––––– “Ita quidquid est illud, quod sentit, quod sapit, quod vivit, quod viget, caeleste et divinum ob eamque rem aeternum sit necesse est.” The words vivit and viget, however, mean rather lives and has vigor, and the expression sentit means also to feel or to have the faculty of sensation.––Compiler.] * St. Patrick, it is claimed, has Christianized “the most Satanized country of the globe—Ireland, ignorant in all save magic”—into the “Island of Saints,” by resurrecting “sixty men dead years before.” Suscitavit sexaginta mortuos (Lectio I and II from the Roman Breviary, 1520). In the MS held to be the famous confession of that saint, preserved in the Salisbury Cathedral (De Script. Hibern., lib. II, cap. i), St. Patrick writes in an autograph letter: “To me the last of men, and the greatest sinner, God has, nevertheless, given, against the magical practices of this barbarous people the gift of miracles, such as had not been given to the greatest of our apostles—since he [God] permitted that among other things (such as the resurrection of animals and creeping things) I should resuscitate dead bodies reduced to ashes since many years.” Indeed, before such a prodigy, the resurrection of Lazarus appears a very insignificant incident. [The facts related above are taken by H.P.B. from de Mirville’s Pneumatologie des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, pp. 333-36, and p. 341. The work entitled De Scriptoribus Hiberniae exists in translation, under the title: The History of the Writers of Ireland. In Two Books. Written in Latin by Sir James Ware, Knight; newly translated into English, revised and improved, with many material additions, and continued down to the beginning of the present century, by Walter Harries, Esq. Dublin: Printed for Robert Bell, and John Fleming, 1764. f. 363 pp. In this English edition, in Book II, ch. i, p. 309, occurs the following passage: “St. Patrick writ also, “Confessionem suam (called by some Itinerarium Confessionis, Lib. I) which is extant in Manuscript in the Library of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury in England, beginning thus: Ego Patricius Peccator. “Epistolam ** commonitoriam ad Corticum (alias) Cereticum which is extant in Manuscript in the same Place (and is published by Ware).” –––––––––– ** Jocel. vit. Patr. cap. 150. The Latin sentence in H.P.B.’s footnote is from a Roman Breviary which could not be traced, and we have to trust in this matter to the erudition of de Mirville. –––––––––– H.P.B. AT “MAYCOT,” NORWOOD, LONDON, 1887

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Really, when such tremendous claims as the said miracles are put forward and enforced by the Church upon the faithful, her theologians should take more care that their highest authorities at least should not contradict themselves, thus showing ignorance upon questions raised nevertheless to a doctrine.

The animal, then, is debarred from progress and immortality, because he is an automaton. According to Descartes, he has no intelligence, agreeably to mediaeval scholasticism; nothing but instinct, the latter signifying involuntary impulses, as affirmed by the materialists and denied by the Church.

Both Frédéric and Georges Cuvier have discussed amply, however, on the intelligence and the instinct in animals.* Their ideas upon the subject have been collected and edited by Flourens, the learned Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. This is what Frédéric Cuvier, for thirty

–––––––––– The information concerning the MS. supposedly preserved in the Salisbury Cathedral seems to be of doubtful authenticity, as direct inquiry to the Chief Librarian, Rev. Chancellor C. T. Dimont, brought a negative reply. Further inquiry ascertained the fact that the earliest manuscript of St. Patrick’s Confession is contained in The Book of Armagh, at present in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, though this MS. is not the most complete. The best edition of the Confessio and the Epistola which often accompanies it, was done by N. J. D. White in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1904-05), Vol. XXV, pp. 201-326, under the title “ The Latin Writings of St. Patrick.” This edition contains no mention at all of the legend that St. Patrick raised sixty men from the dead. “The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick” edited by Whitley Stokes in the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland Series, of 1887 (2 vols.), contains numerous legends connected with the Saint which had sprung up during the years following his death, though no mention of the miracle above referred to can be found therein. However, the Harleian MS. 3859 (in the British Museum), folio 186a, makes the statement that St. Patrick “ mortuos numero usque ad novem suscitavit.” Thus, this entire subject-matter remains somewhat confused and uncertain, and is hard to verify.—Compiler.] * More recently Dr. Romanes and Dr. Butler have thrown great light upon the subject. ––––––––––

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years the Director of the Zoological Department and the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, wrote upon the subject.

Descartes’ mistake, or rather the general mistake, lies in that no sufficient distinction was ever made between intelligence and instinct. Buffon himself had fallen into such an omission, and owing to it everything in his zoological philosophy was contradictory. Recognizing in the animal a feeling superior to our own, as well as the consciousness of its actual existence, he denied it at the same time thought, refection, and memory, consequently every possibility of having thoughts (Buffon, Discours sur la nature des animaux, Vol. VII, p. 57, édit. in-12°).*

But, as he could hardly stop there, he admitted that the brute had a kind of memory, active, extensive and more faithful than our (human) memory (Id., ibid., p. 77). Then, after having refused it any intelligence, he nevertheless admitted that the animal “consulted its master, interrogated him, and understood perfectly every sign of his will.” (Id., ibid., Vol. X, Histoire du chien, p. 2.) †

A more magnificent series of contradictory statements could hardly have been expected from a great man of science.

The illustrious F. Cuvier is right therefore in remarking in his turn, that

. . . . this new mechanism of Buffon is still less intelligible than Descartes’ automaton.‡

As remarked by the critic, a line of demarcation ought to be traced between instinct and intelligence. The construction of bee-hives by the bees, the raising of dams by the beaver in the middle of the naturalist’s dry floor as much as in the river, are all the deeds and effects of instinct forever unmodifiable and changeless, whereas the –––––––––– * [Quoted in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 155. While Flourens’ work is not specifically mentioned, it may be the one entitled: De l’instinct et de l’intelligence des animaux. Résumé des observations de F. Cuvier. 2nd enlarged ed. Paris, 1845. 12°. ––Comp.] † [de Mirville, ibid ] ‡ Biographie Universelle, etc., 1847. Article by F. Cuvier on Buffon’s life, p. 119. ––––––––––

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acts of intelligence are to be found in actions evidently thought out by the animal, where not instinct but reason comes into play, such as its education and training calls forth and renders susceptible of perfection and development. Man is endowed with reason, the infant with instinct; and the young animal shows more of both than the child. Indeed, everyone of the disputants knows as well as we do that it is so. If any materialist avoid confessing it, it is through pride. Refusing a soul to both man and beast, he is unwilling to admit that the latter is endowed with intelligence as well as himself, even though in an infinitely lesser degree. In their turn the churchman, the religiously inclined naturalist, the modern metaphysician, shrink from avowing that man and animal are both endowed with soul and faculties, if not equal in development and perfection, at least the same in name and essence. Each of them knows, or ought to know that instinct and intelligence are two faculties completely opposed in their nature, two enemies confronting each other in constant conflict; and that, if they will not admit of two souls or principles, they have to recognize, at any rate, the presence of two potencies in the soul, each having a different seat in the brain, the localization of each of which is well known to them, since they can isolate and temporarily destroy them in turn—according to the organ or part of the organs they happen to be torturing during their terrible vivisections. What is it but human pride that prompted Pope to say:

Ask for whose end the heavenly bodies shine; Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ’Tis for mine. For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower. Annual for me the grape, the rose, renew The juice nectareous and the balmy dew; For me the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.* –––––––––– * [An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 131-140.] ––––––––––

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And it is the same unconscious pride that made Buffon utter his paradoxical remarks with reference to the difference between man and animal. That difference consisted in the “absence of reflection, for the animal,” he says, “does not feel that he feels.” How does Buffon know? “It does not think that it thinks,” he adds, after having told the audience that the animal remembered, often deliberated, compared and chose!* Whoever pretended that a cow or a dog could be an ideologist? But the animal may think and know it thinks, the more keenly that it cannot speak, and express its thoughts. How can Buffon or anyone else know? One thing is shown however by the exact observations of naturalists and that is, that the animal is endowed with intelligence; and once this is settled, we have but to repeat Thomas Aquinas’ definition of intelligence—the prerogative of man’s immortal soul—to see that the same is due to the animal

But in justice to real Christian philosophy, we are able to show that primitive Christianity has never preached such atrocious doctrines—the true cause of the falling off of so many of the best men as of the highest intellects from the teachings of Christ and his disciples.

–––––––––– III

[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 78, March, 1886, pp. 348-354]

O Philosophy, thou guide of life, and discoverer of virtue! —CICERO. Philosophy is a modest profession, it is all reality and plain dealing; I hate solemnity and pretence, with nothing but pride at the bottom. —PLINY. The destiny of man—of the most brutal, animal-like, as well as of the most saintly—being immortality, according to theological teaching; what is the future destiny of the * –––––––––– * Discours sur la nature des animaux. ––––––––––

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countless hosts of the animal kingdom? We are told by various Roman Catholic writers—Cardinal de Ventura, Count de Maistre and many others—that “animal soul is a Force.”

It is well established that the soul of the animal, says their echo de Mirville,

. . . . was produced by the earth, for this is Biblical. All the living and moving souls [nephesh or life principle] come from the earth; but, let me be understood, not solely from the dust, of which their bodies as well as our own were made, but from the potency of theearth; i.e., from its immaterial force, as all forces are ...... in conjunction with those of the sea, of the air, etc., all of which are those Elementary Principalities (principautés élémentaires) of which we have spoken elsewhere (namely, in Des Esprits, etc., 2nd Mémoire, chap. xii, Cosmolâtrie).* What the Marquis Eudes de Mirville understands by the term is, that every “Element” in nature is a domain filled and governed by its respective invisible spirits. The Western Kabalists and the Rosicrucians named them Sylphs, Undines, Salamanders and Gnomes; Christian mystics, like de Mirville, give them Hebrew names and class each among the various kinds of Demons under the sway of Satan—with God’s permission, of course.

He too rebels against the decision of St. Thomas who teaches that the animal soul is destroyed with the body. “It is a force”—he says—that “we are asked to annihilate, the most substantial force on earth, called animal soul,” which, according to the Reverend Father Ventura, is “ the most respectable soul after that of man.” He had just called it an immaterial force, and now it is named by him “the most substantial thing on earth.” †

But what is this Force? Georges Cuvier and Flourens the academician tell us its secret.

The form or the force of the bodies [form means soul in this case, let us remember], the former writes, is far more essential to them than –––––––––– * Des Esprits, Vol. VI, Appendix G, p. 158. † Ibid. ––––––––––

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matter is, as (without being destroyed) the latter changes constantly, whereas the form PREVAILS. To this Flourens, from whom we quote above, observes: “In everything that has life, the form is more persistent than matter . . . . . for that which constitutes the BEING of the living body, its identity and its sameness, is its form.” *

“Being,” as de Mirville remarks in his turn, “a magisterial principle, a philosophical pledge of our immortality,” † it must be inferred that soul—human and animal—is meant under this misleading term. It is rather what we call the ONE LIFE, I suspect.

However this may be, philosophy, both profane and religious, corroborates this statement that the two “souls” are identical in man and beast. Leibnitz, the philosopher beloved by Bossuet, appeared to credit “Animal Resurrection” to a certain extent. Death being for him “simply the temporary enveloping of the personality,” he likens it to the preservation of ideas in sleep, or to the butterfly within its caterpillar. For him, says de Mirville,

. . . . resurrection ‡ is a general law in nature, which becomes one of the greatest of miracles, when performed by a thaumaturgist, only in virtue of its prematurity, of the surrounding circumstances, and of the mode in which he operates.§ –––––––––– * De la Longévité humaine et de la Quantité de Vie sur le Globe, pp. 50, 49 and 53 resp. [This is a work by Marie Jean Pierre Flourens. Paris, 1854. 12-vo. 3rd ed., 1856. 4th ed., 1860. English transl. by C. Martel (pseud. of T. Delf), entitled On Human Longevity. London, 1855. 12-vo. The original French text is as follows: “ ‘Ainsi, la forme de ces corps leur est plus essentielle que la matière, puisque celle-ci change sans cesse, tandis que l’autre se conserve.’ ” (p. 50) “. . . . Dans tout ce qui a vie, la forme est plus persistante que la matière.” (p. 49) “. . . . . Ce qui constitue l’être du corps vivant, et par suite son identité, sa mêmeté, est précisément ce qui ne change pas, c’est-à-dire sa forme, sa force. . . . . “ (p. 53). H. P. B. uses the quotation as it appears in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 158.––Compiler.] † Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, Appendix G, p. 158. ‡ The occultists call it “transformation” during a series of lives and the final nirvanic Resurrection. § [Op. cit., p. 163.] ––––––––––

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In this Leibnitz is a true Occultist without suspecting it. The growth and blossoming of a flower or a plant in five minutes instead of several days and weeks, the forced germination and development of plant, animal or man, are facts preserved in the records of the Occultists. They are only seeming miracles; the natural productive forces hurried and a thousand-fold intensified by the induced conditions under occult laws known to the Initiate. The abnormally rapid growth is effected by the forces of nature whether blind or attached to minor intelligences subjected to man’s occult power, being brought to bear collectively on the development of the thing to be called forth out of its chaotic elements. But why call one a divine miracle, the other a satanic subterfuge or simply a fraudulent performance?

Still as a true philosopher Leibnitz finds himself forced, even in this dangerous question of the resurrection of the dead, to include in it the whole of the animal kingdom in its great synthesis, and to say:

I believe that the souls of the animals are imperishable . . . . and I find that nothing is better fitted to prove our own immortal nature.*

Supporting Leibnitz, Dean, the Vicar of Middleton, published in 1748 two small volumes upon this subject. To sum up his ideas, he says that

. . . . . the holy scriptures hint in various passages that the brutes shall live in a future life. This doctrine has been supported by several Fathers of the Church. Reason, teaching us that the animals have a soul, teaches us at the same time that they shall exist in a future state. The system of those who believe that God annihilates the soul of the animal is nowhere supported and has no solid foundation to it,” etc., etc.† –––––––––– * Leibnitz, Opera philos. † See Vol. XXIX of the Bibliothèque des sciences, 1st Trimester of the year 1768. [The reference to the French periodical could not be traced. H. P. B. translates from de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, pp. 163-64. However, in Richard Dean’s work entitled, An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes (Manchester, 1767. British Museum, –––––––––––

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Many of the men of science of the last century defended Dean’s hypothesis, declaring it extremely probable, one of them especially—the learned Protestant theologian Charles Bonnet of Geneva. Now, this theologian was the author of an extremely curious work called by him Palingenesis * or the “New Birth,” which takes place, as he seeks to prove, owing to an invisible germ that exists in everybody, and no more than Leibnitz can he understand that animals should be excluded from a system, which, in their absence, would not be a unity, since system means “a collection of laws.” †

The animals [he writes] are admirable books, in which the creator gathered the most striking features of his sovereign intelligence. The anatomist has to study them with respect, and, if in the least endowed with that delicate and reasoning feeling that characterises the moral man, he will never imagine, while turning over the pages, that he is handling slates or breaking pebbles. He will never forget that all that lives and feels is entitled to his mercy and pity. Man should run the risk of compromising his ethical feeling were he to become too familiarised with the suffering and the blood of animals. This truth is so evident that Governments should never lose sight of it . . . . . as to the hypothesis of automatism I should feel inclined to regard it as a philosophical heresy, very dangerous for society, if it did not so strongly violate good sense and feeling as to become harmless, for it can never be generally adopted. –––––––––– 8425. a. 9.), several propositions are outlined in Vol. II, in which the following sentences occur: “The Scriptures plainly intimate, that Brute Animals will have a Being in future, and partake in some Degree of those Benefits which shall be conferred after the Universal Change. . . .” (p. 3). “The Doctrine of a future Existence of Brute Animals, is maintained by some Jewish Writers of the first Class, and the Christian Fathers. . . .” (p. 45). “Reason declares in Favour of the future Existence of Brutes, by determining that Brutes have souls. . .” (p. 49). “The Notion that God annihilates the Souls of Brute Animals, is founded on weak Principles, and opposes Arguments much clearer, and stronger for the Continuation of them; . . .” (p. 69). ––Compiler.] * From two Greek words: ( , to be born, and , again. † See Vol. II of La Palingénesie philosophique. Also de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 164. ––––––––––

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As to the destiny of the animal, if my hypothesis be right, Providence holds in reserve for them the greatest compensations in future states *. . . . And for me, their resurrection is the consequence of that soul or form we are necessarily obliged to allow them, for a soul being a simple substance, can neither be divided, nor decomposed, nor yet annihilated. One cannot escape such an inference without falling back into Descartes’ automatism; and then from animal automatism one would soon and forcibly arrive at that of man. . . . . † –––––––––– * We too believe in “future states” for the animal from the highest down to the infusoria—but in a series of rebirths, each in a higher form, up to man and then beyond—in short, we believe in evolution in the fullest sense of the word. † [de Mirville, op. cit., p. 164. This passage from Charles Bonnet’s work, La Palingénésie Philosophique; ou, Idées sur l’état passé et sur l’état future des êtres vivans (Genève: Claude Philibert et Barthelemi Chirol, 1769. 2 vols. 8-vo), is translated from its original French in a rather free manner, and cannot be considered to be more than a summary of Bonnet’s views. We append herewith the original French text, with its old-fashioned spelling, to be found in Volume II, on pp. 122-23,125-26, and 77-78, respectively. “Les Animaux font des Livres admirables où le GRAND ÊTRE a raffemblé les Traits les plus frappans de sa SOUVERAINE INTELLIGENCE. L’Anatomifte doit ouvrir ces Livres pour les étudier & connoitre mieux fa propre Structure: mais; s’il eft doué de cette senfibilité délicate & raifonnée qui caractérife l’Homme moral, il ne s’imaginera point en les feuilletant qu’il feuillette une Ardoife. Jamais il ne multipliera les Victimes malheureufes de fon inftruction & ne prolongera leurs fouffrances au-delà du But le plus raifonnable de fes Recherches. Jamais il n’oubliera un inftant, que tout ce qui eft doué de Vie & de Senfibilité a droit à fa commiferation.

“L’Homme rifqueroit de corrompre bientôt fes Moeurs, s’il fe familiarifoit trop avec les Souffrances & le Sang des Animaux. Cette Vérité morale eft fi faillante, qu’il feroit fuperflu de la développer: ceux qui font chargés par état de diriger les Hommes ne la perdront jamais de vuë. Je regarderois l’Opinion de l’Automatifme des Bêtes, comme une forte d’Héréfie philofophique, qui deviendroit dangereufe pour la Société, fi tous fes Membres en étoient fortement imbus. Mais, il n’eft pas à craindre, qu’une Opinion, qui fait violence au Sentiment, & qui contredit fans ceffe la Voix de la Nature, puiffe etre généralement adoptée. . ..

“Si mon Hypothèfe eft vraye, la SOUVERAINE BONTÉ auroit beaucoup plus fait encore pour ces innocentes Victimes des Befoins toujours renaiffans d’un Maître fouvent dur & ingrat. ELLE leur ––––––––––

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Our modern school of biologists has arrived at the theory of “automaton-man,” but its disciples may be left to their own devices and conclusions. That with which I am at present concerned, is the final and absolute proof that neither the Bible, nor its most philosophical interpreters—however much they may have lacked a clearer insight into other questions—have ever denied, on Biblical authority, an immortal soul to any animal, more than they have found in it conclusive evidence as to the existence of such a soul in man—in the old Testament. One has but to read certain verses in Job, and the Ecclesiastes (iii, 17-22) to arrive at this conclusion. The truth of the matter is, that the future state of neither of the two is therein referred to by one single word. But if, on the other hand, only negative evidence is found in the Old Testament concerning the immortal soul in animals, in the New it is as plainly asserted as that of man himself, and it is for the benefit of those who deride Hindu philozoism, who assert their right to kill animals at their will and pleasure, and deny them an immortal soul, that a final and definite proof is now being given.

St. Paul was mentioned at the end of Part I as the defender of the immortality of all the brute creation. Fortunately this statement is not one of those that can be pooh-poohed by the Christians as “the blasphemous and heretical interpretations of the holy writ, by a group of –––––––––– auroit réfervé les plus grands dédommagemens dans cet Etat Futur......

–––––––––– “Si les Bêtes ont une Ame, cette Ame eft auffi indivifible, auffi indeftructible par les Caufes fecondes que celle de l’Homme: c’eft qu’une Subftance fimple ne peut etre ni divifée ni décompofée. L’Ame des Bêtes ne peut donc périr que par l’anéantiffement; & je ne vois pas, que la RELIGION annonce en termes exprès cet anéantiffement...... “Les Philofophes, qui par des motifs louables, ont foutenu l’Automatifme des Brutes, n’avoient-ils point à craindre qu’on ne fe fervit de leurs argumens fubtils pour défendre l’Automatifme de l’Homme?” ––Compiler. ––––––––––

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atheists and free-thinkers.” Would that every one of the profoundly wise words of the Apostle Paul—an Initiate whatever else he might have been—was as clearly understood as those passages that relate to the animals. For then, as will be shown, the indestructibility of matter taught by materialistic science; the law of eternal evolution, so bitterly denied by the Church; the omnipresence of the ONE LIFE, or the unity of the ONE ELEMENT and its presence throughout the whole of nature as preached by esoteric philosophy, and the secret sense of St. Paul’s remarks to the Romans (viii, 18-23), would be demonstrated beyond doubt or cavil to be obviously one and the same thing. Indeed, what else can that great historical personage, so evidently imbued with neo-Platonic Alexandrian philosophy, mean by the following, which I transcribe with comments in the light of occultism, to give a clearer comprehension of my meaning?

The Apostle premises by saying (Rom., viii, 16-17) that “The Spirit itself” (Paramatma) “beareth witness with our spirit” (atman) “that we are the children of God,” and “if children, then heirs”—heirs of course to the eternity and indestructibility of the eternal or divine essence in us. Then he tells us that:

The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (viii, 18.)

The “glory” we maintain, is no “new Jerusalem,” the symbolical representation of the future in St. John’s kabalistical Revelations—but the Devachanic periods and the series of births in the succeeding races when, after every new incarnation we shall find ourselves higher and more perfect, physically as well as spiritually; and when finally we shall all become truly the “sons” and “the children of God” at the “last Resurrection”—whether people call it Christian, Nirvanic or Parabrahmic; as all these are one and the same. For truly—

The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. (viii, 19.)

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By creature, animal is here meant, as will be shown further on upon the authority of St. John Chrysostom. But who are the “sons of God,” for the manifestation of whom the whole creation longs? Are they the “sons of God” with whom “satan came also” (See Job, i, 6; ii, 1), or the “seven angels” of Revelation? Have they reference to Christians only or to the “sons of God” all over the world? * Such “manifestation” is promised at the end of every Manvantara † or world-period by the scriptures of every great Religion, and save in the Esoteric interpretation of all these, in none so clearly as in the Vedas. For there it is said that at the end of each Manvantara comes the pralaya, or the destruction of the world––only one of which is known to, and expected by, the Christians—when there will be left the Sishtas, or remnants, seven Rishis and one warrior, and all the seeds, for the next human “tide-wave of the following Round.”‡ But the main question with which we are –––––––––– * See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I. † What was really meant by the “sons of God” in antiquity is now demonstrated fully in The Secret Doctrine, in its Part I (on the Archaic Period)—now nearly ready. [H. P. B. probably means in this connection the First Draft of Part I, then almost completed.––Comp.] ‡ This is the orthodox Hindu as much as the esoteric version. In his Bangalore Picture, What is Hindu Religion?—Dewan Bahadur Raghunath Rao, of Madras, says: “At the end of each Manvantara, annihilation of the world takes place; but one warrior, seven Rishis, and the seeds are saved from destruction. To them God (or Brahm) communicates the Statute law or the Vedas . . . . as soon as a Manvantara commences these laws are promulgated . . . . and become binding . . . . to the end of that Manvantara. These eight persons are called Sishtas, or remnants, because they alone remain after the destruction of all the others. Their acts and precepts are, therefore, known as Sishtachara. They are also designated ‘Sadachara’ because such acts and precepts are only what always existed.” This is the orthodox version. The secret one speaks of seven Initiates having attained Dhyanchohanship toward the end of the seventh Race on this earth, who are left on earth during its “obscuration” with the seed of every mineral, plant, and animal that had not time to evolute into man for the next Round or world-period. See Esoteric Buddhism, by A. P. Sinnett, Fifth Edition, Annotations, pp. 146, 147. ––––––––––

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concerned is not at present, whether the Christian or the Hindu theory is the more correct; but to show that the Brahmins—in teaching that the seeds of all the creatures are left over, out of the total periodical and temporary destruction of all visible things, together with the “sons of God” or the Rishis, who shall manifest themselves to future humanity––say neither more nor less than what St. Paul himself preaches. Both include all animal life in the hope of a new birth and renovation in a more perfect state when every creature that now “waiteth” shall rejoice in the “manifestation of the sons of God.” Because, as St. Paul explains:

The creature itself (ipsa) also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, which is to say that the seed or the indestructible animal soul, which does not reach Devachan while in its elementary or animal state, will get into a higher form and go on, together with man, progressing into still higher states and forms, to end, animal as well as man, in “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (viii, 21).

And this “glorious liberty” can be reached only through the evolution or the Karmic progress of all creatures. The dumb brute having evoluted from the half sentient plant, is itself transformed by degrees into man, spirit, God—et seq. and ad infinitum! For says St. Paul:

We know [“we,” the Initiates] that the whole creation [omnis creatura or creature, in the Vulgate] groaneth and travaileth [in childbirth] in pain together until now. (viii, 22.)*

This is plainly saying that man and animal are on a par on earth, as to suffering, in their evolutionary efforts toward the goal and in accordance with Karmic law. By “until now,” is meant up to the fifth race. To make it still plainer, the great Christian Initiate explains by saying: –––––––––– * “omnis creatura ingemiscit, et parturit usque adhuc,” in the original Latin translation. ––––––––––

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Not only they [the animals], but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (viii, 23.) Yes, it is we, men, who have the “first-fruits of the Spirit,” or the direct Parabrahmic light, our Atma or seventh principle, owing to the perfection of our fifth principle (Manas), which is far less developed in the animal. As a compensation, however, their Karma is far less heavy than ours. But that is no reason why they too should not reach one day that perfection that gives the fully evoluted man the Dhyanchohanic form.

Nothing could be clearer—even to a profane, non-initiated critic—than those words of the great Apostle, whether we interpret them by the light of esoteric philosophy, or that of mediaeval scholasticism. The hope of redemption, or, of the survival of the spiritual entity delivered “from the bondage of corruption,” or the series of temporary material forms, is for all living creatures, not for man alone.

But the “paragon” of animals, proverbially unfair even to his fellow-beings, could not be expected to give easy consent to sharing his expectations with his cattle and domestic poultry. The famous Bible commentator, Cornelius a Lapide, was the first to point out and charge his predecessors with the conscious and deliberate intention of doing all they could to avoid the application of the word creatura to the inferior creatures of this world. We learn from him that St. Gregory Nazianzen, Origen and St. Cyril (the one, most likely, who refused to see a human creature in Hypatia, and dealt with her as though she were a wild animal) insisted that the word creatura, in the verses above quoted, was applied by the Apostle simply to the angels! But, as remarks Cornelius, who appeals to St. Thomas for corroboration,

. . . . . this opinion is too distorted and violent (distorta et violenta), it is moreover invalidated by the fact that the angels, as such, are already delivered from the bonds of corruption.

HAVE ANIMALS SOULS? 47

Nor is St. Augustine’s suggestion any happier; for he offers the strange hypothesis that the “creatures,” spoken of by St. Paul, were “the infidels and the heretics” of all the ages! Cornelius contradicts the venerable father as coolly as he opposed his earlier brother-saints. “For,” says he,

. . . . . in the text quoted the creatures spoken of by the Apostle are evidently creatures distinct from men:—not only they but ourselves also; and then, that which is meant is not deliverance from sin, but from death to come.*

But even the brave Cornelius finally gets scared by the general opposition and decides that under the term creatures St. Paul may have meant—as St. Ambrosius, St. Hilarius (Hilaire) and others insisted––elements (!!), i.e., the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, etc., etc. Unfortunately for the holy speculators and scholastics, and very fortunately for the animals—if these are ever to profit by polemics—they are over-ruled by a still greater authority than themselves. It is St. John Chrysostom, already mentioned, whom the Roman Catholic Church, on the testimony given by Bishop Proclus, at one time his secretary, holds in the highest veneration. In fact St. John Chrysostom was, if such a profane (in our days) term can be applied to a saint, the “medium” of the Apostle to the Gentiles. In the matter of his Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles, St. John is held as directly inspired by that Apostle himself, in other words as having written his comments at St. Paul’s dictation. This is what we read in those comments on the 8th Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. We must always groan about the delay made for our emigration [death]; for if, as saith the Apostle, the creature deprived of reason [mente, not anima, “Soul”] and speech (nam si hoc creatura mente et verbo carens) groans and expects, the more the shame that we ourselves should fail to do so. † –––––––––– * Cornelius, edit. Pélagaud, Vol. IX, p. 114. [Also de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, pp. 166-67.] † Homélie XIV, 6, Sur l’Épître aux Romains. [H.P.B. translates this passage from de Mirville’s French text, in Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 168. It is rather a summary ––––––––––

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Unfortunately we do, and fail most ingloriously in this desire for “emigration” to countries unknown. Were people to study the scriptures of all nations and interpret their meaning by the light of esoteric philosophy, no one would fail to become, if not anxious to die, at least indifferent to death. We should then make profitable use of the time we pass on this earth by quietly preparing in each birth for the next by accumulating good Karma. But man is a sophist by nature. And, even after reading this opinion of St. John Chrysostom––one that settles the question of the immortal soul in animals for ever, or ought to do so at any rate, in the mind of every Christian—we fear the poor dumb brutes may not benefit much by the lesson after all. Indeed, the subtle casuist, condemned out of his own mouth, might tell us, that whatever the nature of the soul in the animal, he is still doing it a favour, and himself a meritorious action, by killing the poor brute, as thus he puts an end to its “groans –––––––––– than a verbatim rendering. The Latin text is as follows (J. P. Migne, Patrol. Curs. Compl., Ser. Graeca Prior, Vol. XXXII. Joannis Chrysostomi, Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, COI. 531): “. . . Non modo enim illis haerere non oportet, sed etiam ingemiscendum est, quod hinc tardius sit emigrandum. Nam si hoc creatura facit, multo magis te ratione ornatum id oportet facere . . . . . Et si creatura mente et sermone carens, et haec ignorans gemit, multo magis nos.” In The Homelies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans (translated with notes and indices in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, anterior to the division of the East and West, Oxford: John Henry Parker; London: F. and J. Rivington, 1848), the following is given as the English rendering of the above Latin text (p. 247): “. . . . not only ought we not to cling to them [things present], but even to groan over the delay of our departure hence. For if the creation does this, much more oughtest thou to do so, honoured with reason as thou art. . . . . And if the creation, devoid as it is of mind and reason, and though in ignorance of these things, yet groaneth, much more should we.” The translator remarks in a footnote that in some MSS. the term logos, in the sense of “words,” occurs at the place where he has used “reason.”––Compiler.] –––––––––––

HAVE ANIMALS SOULS? 49

about the delay made for its emigration” into eternal glory. The writer is not simple enough to imagine, that a whole British Museum filled with works against meat diet, would have the effect of stopping civilized nations from having slaughter-houses, or of making them renounce their beefsteak and Christmas goose. But if these humble lines could make a few readers realize the real value of St. Paul’s noble words, and thereby seriously turn their thoughts to all the horrors of vivisection—then the writer would be content. For verily when the world feels convinced—and it cannot avoid coming one day to such a conviction—that animals are creatures as eternal as we ourselves, vivisection and other permanent tortures, daily inflicted on the poor brutes, will, after calling forth an outburst of maledictions and threats from society generally, force all Governments to put an end to those barbarous and shameful practices. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII January, 1886

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ISIS UNVEILED AND THE VIŚISHTÂDVAITA

[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 76, January, 1886, pp. 279-280]

[In a letter dated June, 3, 1886, written by H.P.B. to Col. H. S. Olcott from Elberfeld, Germany (and originally published in The Theosophist, Vol. LII, No. 11, August, 1931, pp. 673-675), she explains to him the changed attitude of Bawaji (also known as Darbhagiri Nath, M. Krishnamachari and S. Krishnaswami Iyengar). She writes: “And now since he came here he said to my face before all the Gebhard family that I knew nothing of the esoteric teaching; Isis was full of ludicrous mistakes; my Theosophist articles likewise.” To this last remark, H.P.B. adds a footnote as follows: “The letter you signed with my name in the January Theosophist, which letter contains certainly some flapdoodles—became a nice pretext for him.” It would appear from this that the present article was not written by H.P.B. herself, and that Col. Olcott merely signed it with her name. The intrinsic characteristics of it, however, the nature of the teachings treated upon, and the general “atmosphere” of the article strongly suggest H.P.B.’s authorship. It is extremely doubtful that Col. Olcott would have ever written in this style. The student is invited to judge for himself. ––Compiler.]

Sir,— “R. R.” attempts in the October number of our Magazine to prove that I have taught in Isis Unveiled substantially the doctrine of Viśishtadvaita, to which view I take exception. I am quite aware of the fact that Isis is far from being as complete a work as, with the same materials, it might have been made by a better scholar; and that it lacks a symmetry, as a literary production, and perhaps here and there accuracy. But I have some excuse for all that. It was my first book; it was written in a language foreign to me—in which I had not been accustomed to write; the language was even more unfamiliar to certain Asiatic philosophers who rendered assistance; and, finally, Colonel Olcott, who revised the manuscript and worked with me throughout, was then—in the years 1875 and 1876—almost entirely ignorant of Aryan Philosophy, and hence unable to detect and correct such errors as I might so readily fall into when putting my thoughts into English. Still, despite all this, I think

ISIS UNVEILED AND THE VIŚISHTÂDVAITA 51

“R. R.’s” criticism is faulty. If I erred in making too little distinction between an Impersonal God, or Parabrahm, and a Personal God, I scarcely went to the length of confounding the one with the other completely. The pages (Vol. II, 116-17; and 153; and pref., p. 2) that he relies upon, represent not my own doctrine but the ideas of others. The first two are quotations from Manu, and show what an educated Brahman and a Buddhist might answer to Prof. Max Müller’s affirmation that Moksha and Nirvana mean annihilation; while the third (Vol. II, p. 153) is a defence and explanation of the inner sense of the Bible, as from a Christian mystic’s standpoint. Of course this would resemble Viśishtadvaitism, which, like Christianity, ascribes personal attributes to the Universal Principle. As for the reference to the Preface, it seems that even when read in the dead-letter sense, the paragraph could only be said to reflect my personal opinion and not the Esoteric Doctrine. A sceptic in my early life, I had sought and obtained through the Masters the full assurance of the existence of a principle (not Personal God)—“a boundless and fathomless ocean” of which my “soul” was a drop. Like the Adwaitis, I made no difference between my Seventh Principle and the Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; nor did, or do I believe in an individual, segregated spirit in me, as a something apart from the whole. And see, for proof, my remark about the “omnipotence of man’s immortal spirit”—which would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of egoistic separation. My mistake was that throughout the whole work I indifferently employed the words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea: a venial sin surely, when one knows that the English language is so poor that even at this moment I am using the Sanskrit word to express one idea and the English one for the other! Whether it be orthodox Adwaita or not, I maintain as an occultist, on the authority of the Secret Doctrine, that though merged entirely into Parabrahm, man’s spirit while not individual per se, yet preserves its distinct individuality in Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it of the aggregates, or

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skandhas that have survived after each death, from the highest faculties of the Manas. The most spiritual—i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of every personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into Devachan (Swarga) after the death of each personality along the line of rebirths, and become part and parcel of the Monad. The personality fades out, disappearing before the occurrence of the evolution of the new personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: but the individuality of the spirit-soul [dear, dear, what can be made out of this English!] is preserved to the end of the great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is merged in Parabrahm. To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension the human spirit is then lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no longer be traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so in the world of immaterial thought. This latter stands in relation to the human dynamic thought, as, say, the visual power through the strongest conceivable microscope would to the sight of a half-blind man: and yet even this is a most insufficient simile—the difference is “inexpressible in terms of footpounds.” That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic “spirits,” or units, have and must preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in the fact that, however long the “night of Brahma” or even the Universal Pralaya (not the local Pralaya affecting some one group of worlds) yet, when it ends, the same individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path of evolution, though on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure chain of earths than before, and brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from its previous countless rebirths. Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical, semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution. But I am being tempted into details which had best be left for the full consideration which their importance merits to my forthcoming work, The Secret Doctrine. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII March, 1886

A THEOSOPHICAL FABLE 53

A THEOSOPHICAL FABLE

[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 78, March, 1886, pp. 390,91]

[In The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinneft, p. 158, this “Fable” is attributed to Dr. Franz Hartmann. See Compiler’s Note at end of this text.]

Once upon a time, in a country far across the Indian ocean, there was a society of people who wanted to hear and investigate the music of the spheres. They called their society “Harmony,” but there was very little harmony among them; on the contrary, they quarrelled a great deal amongst each other, for, their society was made up of men and women of different nationalities, different characters and different opinions. But to make up for this deficiency, they had in their possession a musical instrument, upon which—if it was properly tuned—the music of the spheres could be heard. This instrument however was almost constantly out of tune, and the winds from the four corners of the earth would then blow into it and it would give forth on such occasions very discordant sounds. To attune it, it was necessary that a great Genius from the upper spheres should descend and put it in order, so that the music of the spheres could be heard. It was indeed a very queer instrument, and what is still more remarkable about it, is the fact, which will hardly be believed by sensible people, that if a person whose mind was very inharmonious, would come near it, it would begin to make a very disagreeable noise. The safe-keeping of that instrument was entrusted to the president of that society, and that president was so proud of its mysterious qualities, that he wanted to show it to everybody, and asked everybody to come and listen to the harmony of the spheres. Now there was a society of non-musical but learned men in a country not far from here, and the president of the harmonial society went to them and told them about his mysterious instrument. They however did not believe him and said that there was no such thing as a “music of the spheres.” The intrepid president however

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insisted that there was, and he promised, that if they would send some one to look at that instrument, he would show them how it was constructed, and he would ask the great Genius of the upper spheres to come and play a tune—for their instruction and edification. Consequently the learned men of the West put their heads together and consulted with each other, and the result was that they selected a smart boy and asked him to go across the big water to look at the great Genius from the upper spheres, and to report the result of his observations to those whose heads had grown to be grey in the acquisition of scientific opinions. The smart boy went and looked at the instrument, but when he came there it gave forth only discordant sounds, because his own soul was not in harmony with it, and the more he worked with it, the more discordant did it become. The president then took out his book of incantations and tried all kinds of conjurations to force the Genius from the upper spheres to come and play a tune for the smart boy, but the Genius would not come. So the smart boy took his travelling bag and went home again and told his fathers in learning, that he did not see the great Genius and did not hear the music of the spheres, and the learned men stuck their heads together a second time and consulted with each other, and the result was that they said the smart boy was wise and that the president of the harmonial society was—mistaken. Now, when the members of the harmonial society heard that important decision, they became very much distressed and they went and destroyed the instrument, because they said that if they could not have an instrument upon which the music of the spheres could be heard at all times, they would rather have no instrument at all. Consequently the society dissolved and the members went their way, some of them attempted to attune their own souls to the harmony of the spheres, others believed that the great Genius had never existed; but the keeper of the instrument sat down and wept bitterly. H.

A THEOSOPHICAL FABLE 54-A

COMPILER’S NOTE

[In The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, in Letter No. LXII, p. 158, H.P.B. wrote: “You will read Hartmann’s ‘Theosophical Fable’ and our answer to it sent to you with a few more explanations.”

Hartmann’s article, it would seem, is an allegorical description of the situation in the Theosophical Society in 1885-86, called forth by various false accusations against H.P.B.

The MS. of H.P.B.’s “answer” is a fragment in her own handwriting, now in the Archives of the Theosophical Society at Adyar. It was originally published in The Theosophist of May, 1962. H.P.B.’s words are not only a comment but a continuation and conclusion of the “Fable,” giving a vivid picture of the problems of the Society as seen by its “Broken Instrument.” This is what she says:]

...... “the keeper of the instrument sat down and wept bitterly. . .” So would the “Instrument” were it not so broken as to be unfit to emit even a sound. . . . .

The fable is deeply significant and very profound. It is to the very point and the author of it was inspired—the mangled remains of the “Instrument” answer for it, though its endorsements are now of little, if any use. The “Theosophical Fable” ought to be published in the Theosophist; and if it is not it will only speak the more against the obduracy of the ex-“keeper” of the “instrument,” and his unwillingness to confess publicly his great sin—for believing in human justice, in human benevolence, fairness and the gentlemanly feelings of “a Society of non-musical but learned men”. And the “fable” ought to be read by every Theosophist, every member of the never “Harmonical Society” and meditated upon. For, besides the individual Karma of every member and the collective Karma of the “Harmonical Society” whose practice differed so widely from its rules and purposes—there is the great sin of its leading members and chiefs. They have desecrated the name (and names) of the “Genius of the Spheres,” and the Genii descend no more. The present trouble has arisen in consequence of such desecration. The Maha-Chohan of the

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Genii has foretold it four years ago. The chief President was warned repeatedly in the beginning by the voice of his “instrument”; it protested in vain, and finally it was swept along itself with the current of enthusiasm, and added its own voice to proclaiming things holy in public, and throwing pearls before swine, and casting that which was sacred to the dogs: the swine are now treading upon the pearls and the dogs are rending the givers. The light that shone in the Darkness which comprehended it not—is now out: Darkness has put its heavy extinguisher upon it.

This would have never happened had the light been sacredly preserved in its own birth-place and sphere—India. But the veneration of her sons for that light was laughed down to scorn; it was called “hero-worship,” mocked and finally represented as a screen to hide unholy practices. The names of the Genii are now dragged into publicity and figure in full in the Report. None of the Presidents would listen to the sage advice to keep their knowledge of the Genii secret; and the holy names were prostituted publicly by every scoffer. KARMA.

There now remains but one thing to be done, if the “Harmonical” Society would be kept alive.

Let its President do as the ex-Corresponding Secretary has done: depose himself before he is deposed by others,—and the Society will die a week later. But let the Society—now dishonored because there never was real harmony in it but rather personal and individual selfishness—unite together at last and wait patiently and prepare thro’ active work for the advent of a Paraclete who may yet be drawn to, and sent to them before the end of the cycle in (1897). The present “instrument” could never have been destroyed by any “learned” Society. It is the unlearned in things occult and spiritual, among the members of the Harmonical Society, who are now breaking it to atoms themselves; those for whom the old instrument has played itself to death, and that was the first to draw their attention and open their ears to the “music of the spheres” however poorly

A THEOSOPHICAL FABLE 54-C

it may have rendered the heavenly melody itself. And now it lies broken into fragments shattered more every day by the kicks of those for whom it sang and labored. . .

But the “Genius of the Spheres” means to pick up the mangled pieces of the instrument once more and glue them together as He alone can. No violin is played better upon, none emits more musical sounds than that one which was broken and mended. The Paganini of the broken Stradizarius is still alive and He will play upon it again but only for those few who will “attune their souls indeed to the music of the Spheres”. The instrument will belong to these and have no “Keeper”. How many such few will remain? Time will soon tell.

[The following is H.P.B.’s note to A. P. Sinnett at the bottom of page 2 of the original MS.]

(Had no time to copy. Send this answer but better to H. His dear sister writes such a loving good letter swearing she “will attune her soul to the music of the Spheres”. If I were you: I would publish his fable in the Theosophist.)

Collected Writings VOLUME VII April and May, 1886

OCCULT OR EXACT SCIENCE? 55

OCCULT OR EXACT SCIENCE?

I

[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 79, April, 1886, pp. 422-431]

Ecce signum! Behold the sign foreseen in a brighter future; the problem that will be the question of the forthcoming age, that every thoughtful, earnest father will be asking himself with regard to his children’s education in the XXth century. And let it be stated at once, that by “Occult Science” neither the life of a chela nor the austerities of an ascetic are here meant; but simply the study of that which alone can furnish the key to the mysteries of nature, and unveil the problems of the universe and of psycho-physical man––even though one should not feel inclined to go any deeper.

Every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy. The true occultist is acquainted with no single problem that esoteric science is unable to solve, if approached in the right direction; the scientific bodies of the West have as yet no phenomenon of natural science that they can fathom to its innermost depths, or explain in all its aspects. Exact science fails to do so—in this cycle, for reasons that will be given further on. Nevertheless the pride of the age, which revolts against the intrusion into the empire of science of old especially of transcendental—truths, is growing every year more intolerant. Soon the world will behold it soaring in the clouds of self-sufficiency like a new tower of Babel, to share, perchance, the fate of the Biblical monument. In a recent scientific work on Anthropology,* one can read the following: “It is then given to us, at last, to know [?], to grasp, to handle and measure the forces through which it is claimed, that God proceeded. . . . . We have made electricity our postman, light our draughts-man, affinity our journeyman,” etc., etc. This is in a –––––––––– * Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie, 3e fascic., p. 384. [In de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. II, 2nd Mémoire, p. 22.] ––––––––––

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French work. One who knows something of the perplexities of exact science, of the mistakes and daily confessions of her staff, feels inclined, after reading such pompous stuff, to exclaim with the malcontent of the Bible: Tradidit mundum ut non sciant. Verily—“the world was delivered to them that they should never know it.” How likely the scientists are to succeed in this direction may be inferred from the fact that the great Humboldt himself could give expression to such erroneous axioms as this one: “Science begins for man only when his mind has mastered MATTER!” * The word “spirit” for “matter” might perhaps have expressed a greater truth. But E. Renan would not have complimented the venerable author of the Kosmos in the terms he did, had the term matter been replaced by spirit. I intend to give a few illustrations to show that the knowledge of matter alone, with the quondam “imponderable” force—whatever the adjective may have meant with the French Academy and Royal Society at the time it was invented—is not sufficient for the purposes of true science. Nor will it ever prove efficient to explain the simplest phenomenon even in objective physical nature, let alone the abnormal cases in which physiologists and biologists at present manifest such interest. As Father Secchi, the famous Roman astronomer expressed it in his work,† “if but a few of the new forces were proven, they would necessitate the admission in space of agents of quite another order than those of gravitation.” “I have read a great deal about occultism and studied Kabbalistic books: I have never understood one word in them!”—was a recent remark made by a learned experimenter in “thought-transference,” “colour-sounds,” and so on. Very likely. One has to study his letters before he can spell and read, or understand what he reads. –––––––––– * Kosmos, Vol. I, pp. 3 and 76 (with same ideas). † L’unità delle Forze Fisiche. [Both Humboldt and Secchi quoted in de Mirville, op. cit., pp. 18 and 31.—Comp.] ––––––––––

OCCULT OR EXACT SCIENCE? 57

Some forty years back, I knew a child—a little girl of seven or eight—who very seriously frightened her parents by saying: “Now, mama, I love you. You are good and kind to me to-day. Your words are quite blue”. . . . . “What do you mean?”. . .. asked the mother. “Your words are all blue—because they are so caressing, but when you scold me they are red ...... so red! But it is worse when you fly in a passion with papa for then they are orange . . . horrid . . . like that”. . .. . And the child pointed to the hearth, with a big roaring fire and huge flames in it. The mother turned pale. After that the little sensitive was heard very often associating sounds with colours. The melody played by the mother on the piano threw her into ecstasies of delight; she saw “such beautiful rainbows,” she explained, but when her aunt played, it was “fire-works and stars, brilliant stars shooting pistols—and then . . . bursting. . . .” The parents got frightened and suspected that something had gone wrong with the child’s brain. The family physician was sent for. “Exuberance of childish fancy,” he said. “Innocent hallucinations. . . Don’t let her drink tea, and make her play more with her little brothers—fight with them, and have physical exercise. . . .” And he departed. In a large Russian city, on the banks of the Volga, stands an hospital with a lunatic asylum attached to it. There a poor woman was locked up for over twenty years —to the day of her death in fact—as a “harmless” though insane patient. No other proofs of her insanity could be found on the case-books than the fact that the splash and murmur of the river-waves produced the finest “God’s rainbows” for her; while the voice of the superintendent caused her to see “black and crimson”—the colours of the Evil one. About that same period, namely in 1840, something similar to this phenomenon was heralded by the French

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papers. Such an abnormal state of feelings—physicians thought in those days—could be due but to one reason; such impressions whenever experienced without any traceable cause, denoted an ill-balanced mind, a weak brain—likely to lead its possessor to lunacy. Such was the decree of science. The views of the piously inclined, supported by the affirmations of the village curés, inclined the other way. The brain had nought to do with the “obsession” for it was simply the work or tricks of the much slandered “old gentleman” with cloven foot and shining horns. Both the men of learning and the superstitious “good women” have had somewhat to alter their opinions since 1840. Even in that early period and before the “Rochester” wave of spiritualism had swept over any considerable portion of civilized society in Europe, it was shown that the same phenomenon could be produced by means of various narcotics and drugs. Some bolder people, who feared neither a charge of lunacy nor the unpleasant prospect of being regarded as wards in “Old Nick’s Chancery,” made experiments and declared the results publicly. One was Théophile Gautier, the famous French author Few are those acquainted with the French literature of that day, who have not read the charming story told by that author, in which he describes the dreams of an opium-eater. To analyse the impressions at first hand, he took a large dose of hashish. “My hearing” he writes, “acquired marvellous capacities: I heard the music of the flowers; sounds—green, red and blue—poured into my ears in clearly perceptible waves of smell and colour. A tumbler upset, the creaking of an arm-chair, a word whispered in the lowest tones vibrated and resounded within me like so many claps of thunder. At the gentlest contact with objects—furniture or human body—I heard prolonged sounds, sighs like the melodious vibrations of an Aeolian harp...... ” * –––––––––– * La Presse, July 10, 1840. ––––––––––

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No doubt the powers of human fancy are great; no doubt delusion and hallucination may be generated for a shorter or a longer period in the healthiest human brain either naturally or artificially. But natural phenomena that are not included in that “abnormal” class do exist; and they have at last taken forcible possession even of scientific minds. The phenomena of hypnotism, of thought-transference, of sense-provoking, merging as they do into one another and manifesting their occult existence in our phenomenal world, succeeded finally in arresting the attention of some eminent scientists. Under the leadership of the famous Dr. Charcot, of the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, several famous men of science took the phenomena in hand—in France, Russia, England, Germany and Italy. For over fifteen years they have been experimenting, investigating, theorising. And what is the result? The sole explanation given to the public, to those who thirst to become acquainted with the real, the intimate nature of the phenomena, with their productive cause and genesis—is that the sensitives who manifest them are all HYSTERICAL! They are psychopates,* and neurosists ‡—we are told—no other cause underlying the endless variety of manifestations than that of a purely physiological character. This looks satisfactory for the present, and––quite hopeful for the future. “Hysterical hallucination” is thus doomed to become, as it appears, the alpha and the omega of every phenomenon. At the same time science defines the word “hallucination” as “an error of our senses, shared by, and imposed (by that error) upon our intelligence.”‡ Now –––––––––– * A Greek compound term coined by the Russian Medical Faculties. † From the word neurosis. ‡ Dictionnaire Médical. [It is most likely that the following work is meant: Dictionnaire des sciences médicales. Par une société de médecins et de chirurgiens. Publié par F. P. Chaumeton et F. V. Mérat de Vaumartoise. 60 vols. 1812-1822.––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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such hallucinations of a sensitive as are objective—the apparition of an “astral body” for instance—are not only perceptible by the sensitive’s (or medium’s) “intelligence,” but are likewise shared by the senses of those present. Consequently the natural inference is that all those witnesses are also hysterical. The world is in danger, we see, of being turned, by the end of this century, into one vast lunatic asylum, in which the learned physicians alone would form the sane portion of humanity. Of all the problems of medical philosophy, hallucination seems, at this rate, the most difficult to solve, the most obstinate to get rid of. It could hardly be otherwise, for it is one of the mysterious results of our dual nature, the bridge thrown over the chasm that separates the world of matter from the world of spirit. None but those willing to cross to the other side can appreciate it, or ever recognize the noumenon of its phenomena. And without doubt a manifestation is quite disconcerting to anyone who witnesses it for the first time. Proving to the materialist the creative faculty, the potency of man’s spirit, naturalising before the churchman the “miracle,” and supernaturalising, so to say, the simplest effects of natural causes, hallucination cannot be accepted yet for what it really is, and could hardly be forced upon the acceptation of either the materialist or the believing Christian, since one is as strong in his denial as the other is in his affirmation. “Hallucination,” says an authority quoted by Brierre de Boismont,* “is the reproduction of the material sign of the idea.” Hallucination, it is said, has no respect for age or for merit; or, if a fatal experience is worth anything—“a physician who would give it too much of his attention or would study it for too long a time and too seriously, would be sure to end his career in the ranks of his own patients.” This is an additional proof, that “hallucination” was hardly ever studied “too seriously” as self-sacrifice is not –––––––––– * Des Hallucinations, p. 3. ––––––––––

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quite the most prominent feature of the age. But if so catching, why should we not be permitted the bold and disrespectful suggestion that the biologists and physiologists of Dr. Charcot’s school, have themselves become hallucinated with the rather one-sided scientific idea that such phenomenal hallucinations are all due to Hysteria?

However it may be, whether a collective hallucination of our medical lights or the impotency of material thought, the simplest phenomenon—of the class accepted and verified by men of science in the year 1885—remains as unexplained by them, as it was in 1840. If, admitting for argument sake, that some of the common herd out of their great reverence—often amounting to fetich worship—for science and authority, do accept the dictum of the scientists that every phenomenon, every “abnormal” manifestation, is due to the pranks of epileptic hysteria, what shall the rest of the public do? Shall they believe that Mr. Eglinton’s self-moving slate pencil is also labouring under a fit of the same epilepsy as its medium—even though he does not touch it? Or that the prophetic utterances of the seers, the grand inspired apostles of all ages and religions, were simply the pathological results of hysteria? Or again that the “miracles” of the Bible, those of Pythagoras, Apollonius and others—belong to the same family of abnormal manifestations, as the hallucinations of Dr. Charcot’s Mlle. Alphonsine—or whatever her name—and her erotic descriptions and her poetry—“in consequence of the swelling with gases of her great bowel” (sic)? Such a pretension is likely to come to grief. First of all “hallucination” itself, when it is really the effect of a physiological cause, would have to be explained—but it never has been. Taking at random some out of the hundreds of definitions by eminent French physicians (we have not those of the English at hand) what do we learn about “hallucinations”? We have given Dr. Brierre de Boismont’s “definition,” if it can be called one: now let us see a few more. Dr. L. F. Lélut calls it—“a sensorial and perceptive folly”; Dr. Chomel—“a common illusion of the

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sensorium”; * Dr. F. Leuret—“an illusion intermediary between sensation and conception” (Fragments Psychologiques sur la Folie); Dr. Michéa—“a perceptive delirium “(Du Délire des Sensations); Dr. Calmeil—“an illusion due to a vicious modification of the nervous substance” (De la Folie, Vol. I); etc., etc. † The above will not make the world, I am afraid, much wiser than it is. For my part, I believe the theosophists would do well to keep to the old definition of hallucinations (theophania) ‡ and folly, made some two thousands of years back by Plato, Virgilius, Hippocrates, Galen and the medical and theological schools of old. “There are two kinds of folly, one of which is produced by the body, the other sent to us by the gods.” About ten years ago, when Isis Unveiled was being written, the most important point the work aimed at was the demonstration of the following: (a) the reality of the Occult in nature; (b) the thorough knowledge of, and familiarity with, all such occult domains amongst “certain men,” and their mastery therein; (c) hardly an art or science known in our age, that the Vedas have not mentioned; and (d) that hundreds of things, especially, mysteries of nature—in abscondito as the alchemists called it—were known to the Aryas of the pre-mahabharata period, which are unknown to us, the modern sages of the XIXth century. A new proof of it is now being given. It comes as a fresh corroboration from some recent investigations in France by learned “specialists” (?) with regard to the confusion made by their neurosists and psychomaniacs between colour and sound, “musical impressions” and colour impressions. This special phenomenon was first approached in Austria in 1873 by Dr. Nüssbaumer. After him it began –––––––––– * See Dictionary of Medical Terms. † [These brief excerpts are taken from Eudes de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. I, p. 86 (3rd. ed., 1854).––Comp.] ‡ Communication with Gods. ––––––––––

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to be seriously investigated in Germany by Bleuler and Lehmann; in Italy by Velardi, Bareggi and a few others, and it was finally and quite recently taken up by Dr. Pedrono of France. The most interesting accounts of colour-sound phenomena may, however, be found in La Nature (No. 620, April 18, 1885, pp. 306-07, and No. 626, May 30, 1885, pp. 406-08), in an article contributed by A. de Rochas who experimented with a certain gentleman whom he names “M.H.P.”

The following is a short résumé of his experience.

M.H.P. is a man of about 57 years of age, an advocate by profession, now living in one of the country faubourgs of Paris, a passionate amateur of natural sciences which he has studied very seriously, fond of music, though no musician himself, a great traveller and as great a linguist. M.H.P. had never read anything about that peculiar phenomenon that makes certain people associate sound with colour, but was subject to it from his very boyhood. Sound of every description had always generated in him the impression of colours. Thus the articulation of the vowels produces in his brain the following results:—The letter A—appears to him dark red; E—white; I—black; O—yellow; U—blue. The double-vowelled letters: Ai—chestnut colour; Ei—greyish white; Eu—light blue; Oi—dirty-yellow; Ou—yellowish. The consonants are nearly all of a dark grey hue; while a vowel, or a double vowel forming with a consonant a syllable, colours that syllable with its own tint. Thus, ba, ca, da are all of red-grey colour; bi, ci, di—ash coloured; bo, co, do—yellow grey, and so on. S ending a word and pronounced in a hissing way, like the Spanish words los campos, imparts to the syllable that precedes it a metallic glittering. The colour of the word depends thus on the colour of the letters that compose it, so that to M.H.P. human speech appears in the shape of many-coloured, or variegated ribbons coming out of persons’ mouths, the colours of which are determined by those of the vowels in the sentences, separated one from the other by the greyish stripes of the consonants.

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The languages receive in their turn a common colouring from those letters that predominate in each. For instance, the German, which abounds in consonants, forms on the whole the impression of a dark grey moss; French appears grey, strongly mixed with white; the English seems nearly black; Spanish is very much coloured especially with yellow and carmin-red tints; Italian is yellow, merging into carmin and black, but with more delicate and harmonious tints than the Spanish. A deep-toned voice impresses M.H.P. with a dark red colour which gradually passes into a chocolate hue; while a shrill, sonorous voice suggests the blue colour, and a voice between these two extremes changes these colours immediately into very light yellow. The sounds of instruments have also their distinct and special colours: the piano and the flute suggest tints of blue; the violin—black; and the guitar—silver grey, etc.

The names of musical notes pronounced loudly, influence M.H.P. in the same manner as the words. The colours of a singing voice and playing depend upon the voice and its compass and altitude, and upon the instrument played on. So it is with figures verbally pronounced; but when read mentally they reflect for him the colour of the ink they are written or printed with. The form, therefore, has nought to do with such colour phenomena. While these impressions do not generally take place outside of himself, but perform, so to say, on the platform of his brain, we find other sensitives offering far more curious phenomena than “M.H.P.” does.

Besides Galton’s interesting chapter upon this subject, in his Inquiries into human faculty and its development, we find in the London Medical Record a sensitive describing his impressions in this wise: “As soon as I hear the sounds of a guitar, I see vibrating chords, surrounded by coloured vapours.” The piano produces the same: “coloured images begin to float over the keys.” One of

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Dr. Pedrono’s subjects in Paris * has always colour impressions outside of himself. “Whenever I hear a chorus composed of several voices,” he says, “I feel a great number of coloured points floating over the heads of the singers. I feel them, for my eye receives no definite impression; nevertheless, I am compelled to look at them and while examining them I feel perplexed, for I cannot find those bright coloured spots where I look at them, or rather feel them.” Inversely, there are sensitives in whom the sight of colours evokes immediately that of sounds, and others again, in whom a triple phenomenon is produced by one special sense generating two other senses. A certain sensitive cannot hear a brass band without a taste “like copper in the mouth” during the performance, and seeing dark golden clouds. Science investigates such manifestations, recognizes their reality, and—remains powerless to explain them. “Neurosis and hysteria” is the only answer obtained, and the “canine hallucinations” of the French academicians quoted in Isis [Vol. I, p. 178], have remained valid to this day as an explanation, or a universal solvent of all such phenomena. But it is only natural after all, that science should be unable to account at any rate for this particular phenomenon of light and sound, since its theory of light itself has never been fully verified, nor made complete to the present day. Let then our scientific opponents play for a while longer at “blindman’s buff” amongst phenomena, with no ground to stand upon but their eternal physiological hypotheses. The time is not perhaps far off when they shall be compelled to change their tactics or—confess themselves defeated by even such elementary phenomena as described above. But, whatever physiologists may, or may not say, or do; whatever their scientific explanations, hypotheses and conclusions at present or in the future, –––––––––– * Annales d’Oculistique, Nov. and Dec., 1882.—Journal de Médecine de l’Ouest, 4me Trimestre, 1882. ––––––––––

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modern phenomena are fast cycling back for their true explanation, to the archaic Vedas, and other “Sacred Books of the East.” For it is an easy matter to show, that the Vedic Aryans were quite familiar with all such mysteries of sound and colour. Mental correlations of the two senses of “sight” and “hearing “ were as common a fact in their days, as that of a man in our own seeing objective things before him with his eyes wide open at noon.

Any student of Occultism, the youngest of chelas who has just begun reading esoterically his Vedas, can suspect what the real phenomenon means; simply—a cyclic return of human organisms to their primitive form during the 3rd and even the 4th Root Races of what is known as the Antediluvian periods. Everything conspires to prove it, even the study of such exact sciences as philology and comparative mythology. From the hoary days of antiquity, from the very dawn of the grand civilizations of those races that preceded our Fifth Race, and the traces of which now lie buried at the very bottom of the oceans, the fact in question was known. That which is now considered as an abnormal phenomenon, was in every probability the normal state of the antediluvian Humanity. These are no vain words, for here are two of the many proofs.

In consequence of the abundant data gleaned by linguistic research, philologists are beginning to raise their voices and are pointing to some very suggestive, though as yet unexplained facts. (1) All the words indicative of human representations and conceptions of light and sound are found to have their derivation from the same roots.* –––––––––– * Introduction à la mythologie de l’Odyssée, Voyevodsky. [Reference is here made to the Russian historian Leopold Franzovich Voyevodsky, and to his doctorate thesis entitled Vvedenie v mifologiiu odissei (Introduction to the Mythology of the Odyssey, Odessa, 1881). It is very difficult to obtain, but may be consulted in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. It is not known why H.P.B. mentions this work with a French title, as no translation of it is known to exist. Vide VOYEVODSKY in the Bio-Bibliographical Index.––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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(2) Mythology shows, in her turn, the evident law—the uniformity of which precludes the possibility of chance—that led the ancient symbologists to represent all their sun-gods and radiant deities—such as the Dawn, the Sun, Aurora, Phoebus, Apollo, etc.––connected in one way or the other with music and singing—with sound in short—associated with radiancy and colour.* If this is as yet but an inference, there exists a still better proof in the Vedas, for there the conceptions of the words “sound” and “light,” “to hear” and “to see,” are always associated. In Hymn X, 71, verse 4, we read: “One—though looking, sees not the speech, and the other seeing—does not hear it.” And again in verse 7th, in which a party of friends is represented as emulating each other in singing, they are charactered by the double epithet placed side by side: Akshavanta and Karnavanta, or “one finished with eyes” and “one furnished with ears.” The latter is natural—the singer has a good ear for music, and the epithet is comprehensible in view of the musical emulation. But what sense can the Akshavanta have in this case, with his good sight, unless there is a connection and a meaning in it that are not explained, because probably the hymn refers to days when sight and hearing were synonymous terms? Moreover, a philologist, a rising Orientalist,† tells us that “ the Sanskrit verbal root ARCH is used to denote two meanings—(a) ‘to sing,’ and (b) ‘to shine,’ to radiate beams or rays. The substantives rich and archis, derived from the root ARCH, are used to signify (1) song, hymn, and (2) brilliancy, ray, sun. . . . In the conception of the ancients a speech could be seen . . . ,” he explains. What does the Esoteric Doctrine—that universal solvent indeed of all scientific difficulties and puzzles––say to this? It sends us to the chapter on the –––––––––– * D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, Essay on the Bacchic Cults of the Indo-European antiquity, etc. † Professor D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, the Author of the Essay on the Bacchic Cults, etc. [Vide OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY in the Bio-Bibliogr. Index.––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Evolution of Races, in which primitive man is shown in his special evolution advancing on the physical plane by developing a sense in each successive sub-race (of which there are seven) of the 1st Root-race during the 4th Round on this globe.* Human speech, as known to us, came into being in the Root-race that preceded ours—the Fourth or the “Atlantean”—at the very beginning of it, in sub-race No. 1; and simultaneously with it were developed sight—as a physical sense—while the four other senses (with the two additional—the 6th and 7th—of which science knows nothing as yet)—remained in their latent, undeveloped state as physical senses, although fully developed as spiritual faculties. Our sense of hearing developed only in the 3rd sub-race. Thus, if human “speech”—owing to that absence of the sense of hearing––was in the beginning even less than what we would call a whispered speech, for it was a mental articulation of sounds rather than anything else, something like the systems we now see worked out for the Deaf and Dumb, still it is easy to understand how, even from those early days, “speech” became associated with “sight,” or, in other words, people could understand each other and talk with the help of only sight and touch. “Sound is seen before it is heard”—says the Book of Kiu-ti. The flash of lightning precedes the clap of thunder. As ages went by mankind fell with every new generation lower and lower into matter, the physical smothering the spiritual, until the whole set of senses—that had formed during the first three Root-races but one SENSE, namely, spiritual perception—finally fell asunder to form henceforth five distinct senses.

But we are in the 5th race, and we have already passed the turning or axial point of our “sub-race cycle.” Eventually as the current phenomena and the increase of sensitive organisms in our age go to prove, this Humanity –––––––––– * See Esoteric Buddhism—for the Rounds, World-periods, and Subraces. The chapter referred to will appear in The Secret Doctrine, which will shortly be published. ––––––––––

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will be moving swiftly on the path of pure spirituality, and will reach the apex (of our Race) at the end of the 7th sub-race. In plainer and fuller language—plainer and fuller to some theosophists only, I am afraid—we shall be, at that period, on the same degree of spirituality that belonged to, and was natural in, the 1st sub-race of the 3rd Root-race of the FOURTH Round; and the second half of it (or that half in which we now are) will be, owing to the law of correspondence, on parallel lines with the first half of the THIRD Round. In the words of one in whom live Truth and Wisdom—however often His words may have been misunderstood and criticised, not alone by profane critics but even by some theosophists—“in the 1st half of the 3rd Round the primordial spirituality of man was eclipsed, because over-shadowed by nascent mentality”; Humanity was on its descending arc in the first half of that round and in the last half on its ascending arc: i.e., “ his [man’s] gigantic stature had decreased and his body improved in texture; and he had become a more rational being though still more an ape than a Deva-man.” * And, if so, then, according to that same law of correspondences—an immutable one in the system of cycles we have to infer the following:—that the latter half of our Round—as shown to correspond with the 1st –––––––––– * [H.P.B. makes reference to and quota from a Letter of Master K.H. received by A. O. Hume, July 9, 1882, answering questions on Globe-Rounds, etc. The original of this Letter does not seem to exist any longer. The text can be found in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 78-88, where it has been transcribed “from a copy in Mr. Sinnett’s handwriting.” The wording runs as follows (pp. 87-88): “3rd Round.—He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body; at first the form of a giant ape, and more intelligent (or rather cunning) than spiritual. For in the downward arc he has now reached the point where his primordial spirituality is eclipsed or over-shadowed by nascent mentality. In the last half of this third round his gigantic stature decreases, his body improves in texture (perhaps the microscope might help to demonstrate this) and he becomes a more rational being—though still more an ape than a Deva man.” ––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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half of the 3rd—must have already begun to be once more over-shadowed by re-nascent “primordial” spirituality, which, at the end of the 4th Round, will have nearly eclipsed our actual mentality—in the sense of cold human Reason. On the principle of that same law of correspondences—as shall be shown and thoroughly explained in the forthcoming Secret Doctrine—civilized humanity will soon begin to show itself, if even less “rational” on the worldly plane, at any rate more Deva-like than “ape-like”—as we now actually are, and that in the most distressing degree. I may conclude with the remark, that since our natural and still “ape-like” propensities make us dread, individually and collectively, to be thrown by public opinion out of that region where all the smaller bodies gravitate toward the luminary of our social solar system—Science and her authority—something has to be done to remedy such a disastrous state of things. I propose to show therefore, in my next, that as we are still only in the 5th subrace of the Parent race, and none of us shall live to see the 7th—when things shall mend naturally—that it is just as well not to hang our hopes on science, whether orthodox or semi-heretical. The men of science cannot help -the world to understand the rationale of phenomena, which for a little while longer in this cycle it will be quite impossible for them to account for, even to themselves. They can neither understand nor explain it, any more than anyone else can, who has not studied occultism and the hidden laws that govern nature and rule mankind. The men of science are helpless in this case, and it is unjust to charge them with malice, or even with unwillingness—as has been often done. Their rationality (taken in this case in the sense of intellectuality, not of reason) can never permit them to turn their attention to occult study. Therefore it is useless to demand or expect from the learned men of our age that which they are absolutely incapable of doing for us, until the next cycle changes and transforms entirely their inner nature by “improving the texture” of their spiritual minds.

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II

[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 80, May, 1886, pp. 481-494]

It has already been remarked that neither the medical faculties, nor the scientific bodies of physicists, could ever explain the primum mobile or rationale of the simplest phenomenon, outside of purely physiological causes; and that, unless they turned for help to occultism, they would have to bite the dust before the XXth century was very old. This seems a bold assertion. Nevertheless, it is fully justified by that of certain medical celebrities: that no phenomenon is possible outside of physiological and purely physical causes. They might reverse this statement and say no final investigation is possible with the light of only physiological and physical causes. That would be correct. They might add that, as men of exact science, they could not employ other methods of investigation. Therefore, having conducted their experiments to a certain boundary, they would desist and declare their task accomplished. Then the phenomena might be passed on to transcendentalists and philosophers to speculate upon. Had they spoken in such a spirit of sincerity no one would have the right of saying that they had not done their duty: for they would have done the best they could under the circumstances, and, as will presently be shown, they could do no more. But at present the neuropathic physicians merely impede the progress of real psychological knowledge. Unless there is an opening, however small, for the passage of a ray from a man’s higher self to chase the darkness of purely material conceptions from the seat of his intellect, and to replace it by light from a plane of existence entirely unknown to the ordinary senses, his task can never be wrought to a successful termination. And as all such abnormal cases, in order to be manifested to our physical as well as spiritual senses, in other words, to become objective, must always have their generating causes interblended between the two spheres or planes of existence, the physical and the spiritual, it is but natural

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that a materialist should discern only those with which he is acquainted, and remain blind to any other.

The following illustration will make this clear to every intellectual reader.

When we speak of light, of heat and sound, and so on, what do we mean? Each of these natural phenomena exists per se. But for us it has no being independently of our senses, and exists only to that degree which is perceived by a sense corresponding to it in us. Without being in the least deaf or blind, some men are endowed with far less acute hearing and sight than their neighbours; and it is a well known fact that our senses can be developed and trained as well as our muscles by exercise and method. It is an old axiom that the sun needs an eye to manifest its light; and though the solar energy exists from the first flutter of our Manvantara and will exist to the first killing breath of Pralaya, still, if a certain portion of that energy did not call forth in us those modifications that we name perception of light, Cimmerian darkness would fill the Kosmos and we should be denying the very existence of the sun. Science makes a distinction between the two energies—that of heat and that of light. But the same science teaches us that the creature, or being, in which the corresponding external actions would cause a homogeneous modification, could not find any difference between heat and light. On the other hand, that the creature, or being, in which the dark rays of the solar spectrum would call forth the modifications that are produced in us by the bright rays, would see light there, where we saw nothing whatever. Mr. A. Butleroff, a professor of chemistry and an eminent scientist, gives us many instances of the above. He points to the observations made by Sir John Lubbock on the sense of colour in ants. It was found by that distinguished man of science, that ants do not allow their eggs to remain subjected to light, and carry them off immediately from a sun-lit spot to a dark place. But when a ray of red light is turned on those eggs (the larvae), the ants leave them untouched as though they were in

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complete darkness: they place their eggs indifferently under a red light or in utter darkness. Red light is a non-existent thing for them: as they do not see it, it is for them darkness. The impressions made on them by bright rays are very weak, especially by those nearest to the red—the orange and yellow. To such rays, on the contrary, as light and dark blue and violet—they seem very impressionable. When their nests are lit partly with violet and partly with red rays, they transfer their eggs immediately from the violet onto the red field. To the ant, therefore, the violet ray is the brightest of all the spectral rays. Their sense of colour is therefore quite the opposite of the same sense in man.

But this contrast is still more strengthened by another fact. Besides the rays of light, the solar spectrum contains, as everyone knows, the so-called heat rays (for red) and the chemical (for violet). We see however neither the one nor the other, but term both of them dark rays: while the ants perceive them clearly. For, as soon as their eggs are subjected to the action of those dark rays, the ants drag them from that (to us) quite obscure field onto the one lighted by the red rays: therefore, for them, the chemical ray is violet. Hence says the professor—

Owing to such a peculiarity, the objects seen by the ants must appear to them quite different from what they seem to us; those insects find evidently in nature hues and colours of which we have not, nor can have, the slightest conception. Admit for one moment the existence in nature of such objects as would swallow up all the rays of the solar spectrum, and scatter only the chemical rays: these objects would remain invisible to us, while the ants would perceive them very well.

And now, let the reader imagine for one moment the following: that there may be a possibility within the powers of man, with the help of secret sciences, firstly of preparing an “object” (call it talisman if you will) which, detaining for a longer or shorter period the rays of the “solar spectrum” on some one given point, will cause the manipulator of it to remain invisible to all, because he places himself and keeps within the boundary of the

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chemical “dark” rays; and secondly—reversing it, to become enabled to see in nature by the help of those dark rays that which ordinary men, with no such “talisman” at hand, can never see with their natural, naked eye! This may be a simple supposition, or it may be a very serious statement, for all the men of science know. They protest only against that which is claimed to be supernatural, above or outside their Nature; they have no right to object to the acceptance of the supersensuous, if shown within the limits of our sensuous world.

The same holds good in acoustics. Numerous observations have shown that ants are completely deaf to the sounds that we hear; but that is no reason why we should suppose that ants are deaf. Quite the reverse; for taking his stand on his numerous observations, the same scientist thinks it necessary to accept that the ants hear sounds, “only not those that are perceptible to us.” Every organ of hearing is sensitive to vibrations of a given rapidity, but in cases of different creatures such rapidities may very easily not coincide. And not only in the case of creatures quite different from us men, but even in that of mortals whose organizations are peculiar—abnormal as they are termed—either naturally, or through training.* Our ordinary ear, for instance, is insensible to vibrations surpassing 38,000 a second, whereas the auditive organ of not only ants but some mortals likewise—who know the way to secure the tympanum from damage, and that of provoking certain correlations in ether—may be very sensitive to vibrations exceeding by far the 38,000 in a second, and thus, such an auditive organ,—abnormal only in the limitations of exact science,—might naturally enable its possessor, whether man or ant, to enjoy sounds and melodies in nature, of which the ordinary tympanum gives no idea. “ There, where to our senses reigns dead silence, a thousand of the most varied and weird sounds –––––––––– * The case of Kashmiri natives and especially girls who work on shawls is given in Isis [Vol. I, p. 211]. They perceive 300 hues more than Europeans do. ––––––––––

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may be gratifying to the hearing of ants,” says Professor Butleroff*, citing Lubbock; “and these tiny, intelligent sects could, therefore, regard us with the same right as we have to regard them––as deaf, and utterly incapable of enjoying the music of nature, only because they remain insensible to the sound of a gun, human shouting, whistling, and so on.”

The aforesaid instances sufficiently show that the scientist’s knowledge of nature is incapable of coinciding wholly and entirely with all that exists and may be found in it. Even without trespassing on other and different spheres and planets, and keeping strictly within the boundaries of our globe, it becomes evident that there exist in it thousands upon thousands of things unseen, unheard, and impalpable to the ordinary human senses. But let us admit, only for the sake of argument, that there may be––quite apart from the supernatural—a science that teaches mortals what may be termed supersensuous chemistry and physics; in plainer language—alchemy and the metaphysics of concrete not abstract nature, and every difficulty will be removed. For, as the same Professor argues—

If we see light there, where another being is plunged in darkness; and see nothing there, where it experiences the action of the light waves; if we hear one kind of sounds and remain deaf to another kind of sounds, heard, nevertheless, by a tiny insect—is it not as clear as day, that it is not nature, in her, so to say, primeval nakedness, that is subject to our science and its analysis, but simply those modifications, feelings and perceptions that she awakens in us? It is in accordance with these modifications only that we can draw our conclusions about external things and nature’s actions, and thus create to ourselves the image of the world surrounding us. The same, with respect to every “ finite “ being: each judging of the external, only by the modifications that are created in him (or it) by the same.

And this, we think, is the case with the materialist: he can judge psychic phenomena only by their external aspect, and no modification is, or ever can be, created in him, so as to open his insight to their spiritual aspect. –––––––––– * Scientific Letters, X. ––––––––––

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Notwithstanding the strong position of those several eminent men of science who, becoming convinced of the actuality of “spiritual” phenomena, so-called, have become spiritualists; notwithstanding that—like Professors Wallace, Hare, Zöllner, Wagner, Butleroff—they have brought to bear upon the question all the arguments their great knowledge could suggest to them—their opponents have had, so far always the best of them. Some of these do not deny the fact of phenomenal occurrences but they maintain that the chief point in the great dispute between the transcendentalists of spiritualism and the materialists is simply the nature of the operative force, the primum mobile of the power at work. They insist on this main point: the spiritualists are unable to prove that this agency is that of intelligent spirits of departed human beings, “so as to satisfy the requirements of exact science, or of the unbelieving public for the matter of that.” And, viewed from this aspect, their position is impregnable.

The theosophical reader will easily understand that it is immaterial whether the denial is to the title of “spirit” pure and simple or to that of any other intelligent being, whether human, sub-human, or super-human, or even to a Force—if it is unknown to, and rejected a priori by science. For it seeks precisely to limit such manifestations to those forces only that are within the domain of natural sciences. In short, it rejects point blank the possibility of showing them mathematically to be that which the spiritualists claim them to be, insisting that they have been already demonstrated.

It becomes evident, therefore, that the Theosophist, or rather the Occultist, must find his position far more difficult than even the spiritualist ever can, with regard to modern science. For it is not to phenomena per se that most of the men of science are averse, but to the nature of the agency said to be at work. If, in the case of “Spiritual” phenomena these have only the materialists against them, not so in our case. The theory of “ Spirits” has only to contend against those who do not believe in the survival of man’s soul. Occultism raises

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against itself the whole legion of the Academies; because, while putting every kind of “Spirits,” good, bad and indifferent, in the second place, if not entirely in the background, it dares to deny several of the most vital scientific dogmas; and in this case, the Idealists and the Materialists of Science, feel equally indignant; for both, however much they may disagree in personal views, serve under the same banner. There is but one science, even though there are two distinct schools—the idealistic and the materialistic; and both of these are equally considered authoritative and orthodox in questions on science. Few are those among us who clamoured for a scientific opinion expressed upon Occultism, who have thought of this, or realized its importance in this respect. Science, unless remodelled entirely, can have no hand in occult teachings. Whenever investigated on the plan of the modern scientific methods, occult phenomena will prove ten times more difficult to explain than those of the spiritualists pure and simple.

It is, after following for nearly ten years, the arguments of many learned opponents who battled for and against phenomena, that an attempt is now being made to place the question squarely before the Theosophists. It is left with them, after reading what I have to say to the end, to use their judgment in the matter, and to decide whether there can remain one tittle of hope for us ever to obtain in that quarter, if not efficient help, at any rate a fair hearing in favour of the Occult Sciences. From none of their members—I say—not even from those whose inner sight has compelled them to accept the reality of the mediumistic phenomena.

This is but natural. Whatever they be, they are men of the modern science even before they are spiritualists, and if not all, some of them at any rate would rather give up their connection with, and belief in, mediums and spirits, than certain of the great dogmas of orthodox, exact science. And they would have to give up not a few of these were they to turn Occultists and approach the threshold of THE MYSTERY in a right spirit of enquiry.

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It is this difficulty that lies at the root of the recent troubles of Theosophy; and a few words upon the subject will not be out of season, the more so as the whole question lies in a nut-shell. Those Theosophists who are not Occultists cannot help the investigators, let alone the men of science. Those who are Occultists work on certain lines that they dare not trespass. Their mouth is closed; their explanations and demonstrations are limited. What can they do? Science will never be satisfied with a half-explanation.

To know, to dare, to will and to remain silent—is so well known as the motto of the Kabbalists, that to repeat it here may perhaps seem superfluous. Still it may act as a reminder. As it is, we have either said too much, or too little. I am very much afraid it is the former. If so, then we have atoned for it, for we were the first to suffer for saying too much. Even that little might have placed us in worse difficulties hardly a quarter of a century ago.

Science—I mean Western Science—has to proceed on strictly defined lines. She glories in her powers of observation, induction, analysis and inference. Whenever a phenomenon of an abnormal nature comes before her for investigation, she has to sift it to its very bottom, or let it go. And this she has to do, and she cannot, as we have shown, proceed on any other than the inductive methods based entirely on the evidence of physical senses. If these, aided by the scientific acumen, do not prove equal to the task, the investigators will resort to, and will not scruple to use, the police of the land, as in the historical cases of Loudun, Salem Witchcraft, Morzine, etc.: The Royal Society calling in Scotland Yard, and the French Academy her native mouchards, all of whom will, of course, proceed in their own detective-like way to help science out of difficulty. Two or three cases of “an extremely suspicious character” will be chosen, on the external plane of course, and the rest proclaimed of no importance, as contaminated by those selected. The testimony of eye-witnesses will be rejected, and the evidence of ill-disposed persons speaking on hearsay accepted as

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“unimpeachable.” Let the reader go over the 20 odd volumes of de Mirville’s and des Mousseaux’s works, embracing over a century of forced enquiry into various phenomena by science, and he will be better able to judge the ways in which scientific, often honourable, men-proceed in such cases. What can be expected then, even from the idealistic school of science, whose members are in so small a minority. Laborious students they are, and some of them open to every truth and without equivocation. Even though they may have no personal hobbies to lose, should their previous views be shown to err, still there are such dogmas in orthodox science that even they would never dare to trespass. Such, for instance, are their axiomatic views upon the law of gravitation and the modern conceptions of Force, Matter, Light, etc., etc. At the same time we should bear in mind the actual state of civilized Humanity, and remember how its cultured classes stand in relation to any idealistic school of thought, apart from any question of occultism. At the first glance we find that two-thirds of them are honeycombed with what may be called gross and practical materialism. “The theoretical materialistic science recognizes nought but SUBSTANCE. Substance is its deity, its only God.” We are told that practical materialism, on the other hand, concerns itself with nothing that does not lead directly or indirectly to personal benefit. “Gold is its idol,” justly observes Professor Butleroff* (a spiritualist, yet one who could never accept even the elementary truths of occultism, for he “cannot understand them”). “A lump of matter,” he adds, the beloved substance of the theoretical materialists, is transformed into a lump of mud in the unclean hands of ethical materialism. And if the former gives but little importance to inner (psychic) states that are not perfectly demonstrated by their exterior states, the latter disregards entirely the inner states of life. . . . . The spiritual aspect of life has no meaning for practical materialism, everything being –––––––––– * Scientific Letters, X. ––––––––––

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summed up for it in the external. The adoration of this external finds its principal and basic justification in the dogma of materialism, which has legalized it. This gives the key to the whole situation. Theosophists or Occultists at any rate, have nothing then to expect from materialistic Science and Society.

Such a state of things being accepted for the daily routine of life—though that which interferes with the highest moral aspirations of Humanity cannot we believe live long—what can we do but look forward with our hopes to a better future? Meanwhile, we ought never to lose courage; for if materialism, which has depopulated heaven and the elements, and has chosen to make of the limitless Kosmos instead of an eternal abode a dark and narrow tomb, refuses to interfere with us, we can do no better than leave it alone.

Unfortunately it does not. No one speaks so much as the materialists of the accuracy of scientific observation, of a proper use of one’s senses and one’s reason thoroughly liberated from every prejudice. Yet, no sooner is the same privilege claimed in favour of phenomena by one who has investigated them in that same scientific spirit of impartiality and justice, than his testimony becomes worthless. “Yet if such a number of scientific minds,” writes Prof. Butleroff “accustomed by years of training to the minutest observation and verification, testify to certain facts, then there is a prima facie improbability that they should be collectively mistaken.” “But they have and in the most ludicrous way,” answer his opponents; and this time we are at one with them.

This brings us back to an old axiom of esoteric philosophy: “nothing of that which does not exist somewhere, whether in the visible or invisible kosmos, can be reproduced artificially, or even in human thought.” “What nonsense is this?” exclaimed a combative Theosophist upon hearing it uttered. “Suppose I think of an animated tower, with rooms in it and a human head, approaching and talking with me—can there be such a thing in the universe?” ALFRED PERCY SINNETT 1840-1921 Reproduced from Isabel de Steiger’s Memorabilia.

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“Or parrots hatching out of almond-shells?” said an-other sceptic. Why not?—was the answer—not on this earth, of course. But how do we know that there may not be such beings as you describe—tower-like bodies and human heads—on some other planet? Imagination is nothing but the memory of preceding births—Pythagoras tells us. You may yourself have been such a “tower man” for all you know, with rooms in you in which your family found shelter like the little ones of the kangaroo. As for parrots hatching out of almond shells—no one could swear that there was no such thing in nature, in days of old, when evolution gave birth to far more curious monsters. A bird hatching out of the fruit of a tree is perhaps one of those countless words dropped by evolution so many ages ago, that the last whisper of its echo was lost in the Diluvian roar. “The mineral becomes plant, the plant an animal, an animal man,” etc. say the Kabbalists.

Speaking of the evidence and the reliability of senses—even the greatest men of science got caught once upon a time, in not only believing such a thing, but in actually teaching it as a scientific fact—as it appears.

“When was that?” was the incredulous question. “Not so far back, after all; some 280 years ago—in England.” The strange belief that there was a kind of a sea-fowl that hatched out of a fruit was not limited at the very end of the XVIth century to the inhabitants of English sea-port towns only. There was a time when most of the men of science firmly believed it to be a fact, and taught it accordingly. The fruit of certain trees growing on the sea shore—a kind of Magnolia—with its branches dipping generally in the water, had its fruits—as it was asserted—transformed gradually by the action of salt water into some special Crustacean formation, from which emerged in good time a living sea-bird, known in the old natural histories as the “Barnacle-goose.” Some naturalists accepted the story as an undeniable fact. They observed and investigated it for several years, and the discovery was accepted and approved by the

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greatest authorities of the day and published under the auspices of some learned society. One of such believers in the “Barnacle-goose” was John Gerard, a botanist, who notified the world of the amazing phenomenon in an erudite work published in 1596. In it he describes it, and declares it “a fact on the evidence of his own senses.” “He has seen it himself,” he says, “ touched the fruit-egg day after day,” watched its growth and development personally, and had the good luck of presiding at the birth of one such bird. He saw first the legs of the chicken oozing out through the broken shell, then the whole body of the little Barnacle-goose “which begun forthwith swimming.” * So much was the botanist convinced of the truth of the whole thing, that he ends his description by inviting any doubter of the reality of what he had seen to come and see him, John Gerard, and then he would undertake to make of him an eye-witness to the whole proceeding. Robert Murray another English savant and an authority in his day, vouches for the reality of the transformation of which he was also an eye-witness.† And other learned men, the contemporaries of Gerard and Murray—Funck, Aldrovandi, and many others shared that conviction.‡ So what do you say to this “Barnacle-goose”? –––––––––– * From the Scientific Letters––Letter XXIV, Against Scientific Evidence in the Question of Phenomena. † He speaks of that transformation in the following words, as translated from the Latin: “In every conch (or shell) that I opened, after the transformation of the fruits on the branches into shells, I found the exact picture in miniature in it of the sea-fowl: a little beak like that of a goose, well dotted eyes; the head, the neck, the breast, the wings, and the already formed legs and feet, with well marked feathers on the tail, of a dark colour, etc., etc.” ‡ It is evident that this idea was commonly held in the latter half of the 17th century, seeing that it found a place in Hudibras, which was an accurate reflection of the opinions of the day:— “As barnacles turn Soland Geese In the islands of the Orchades.” [by Samuel Butler, Pt. III, Canto II, line 9.] ––––––––––

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Well, I would rather call it the “Gerard-Murray goose,” that’s all. And no cause to laugh at such mistakes of those early scientists. Before two hundred years are over our descendants will have far better opportunities to make fun of the present generations of the F.R.S. and their followers. But the opponent of phenomena who quoted the story about the “Barnacle-goose” is quite right there; only that instance cuts both ways, of course, and when one brings it as a proof that even the scientific authorities, who believe in spiritualism and phenomena, may have been grossly mistaken with all their observation and scientific training, we may reverse the weapon and quote it the other way; as an evidence as strong that no “acumen” and support of science can prove a phenomenon “referable to fraud and credulity,” when the eye-witnesses who have seen it know it for a fact at least. It only shows that the evidence of even the scientific and well trained senses and powers of observation may be in both cases at fault as those of any other mortal, especially in cases where phenomenal occurrences are sought to be disproved. Even collective observation would go for nought, whenever a phenomenon happens to belong to a plane of being, called (improperly so in their case) by some men of science the fourth dimension of space; and when other scientists who investigate it lack the sixth sense in them, that corresponds to that plane. In a literary cross-firing that happened some years ago between two eminent professors, much was said of that now for ever famous fourth dimension. One of them, telling his readers that while he accepted the possibility of only the “terrestrial natural sciences,” viz., the direct or inductive science, “or the exact investigation of those phenomena only which take place in our earthly conditions of space and time,” says he can never permit himself to overlook the possibilities of the future. “I would remind my colleagues,” adds the Professor-Spiritualist, that our inferences from that which is already acquired by investigation, must go a great deal further than our sensuous perceptions. The limits of sensuous knowledge must be subjected to constant enlargement, and those of deduction still more. Who shall dare to

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draw those limits for the future ? . . . . . Existing in a three-dimensional space, we can conduct our investigations of, and make our observations upon, merely that which takes place within those three dimensions. But what is there to prevent us thinking of a space of higher dimensions and building a geometry corresponding to it? . . . . . Leaving the reality of a four-dimensional space for the time being aside, we can still . . . . . go on observing and watching whether there may not be met with occasionally on our three-dimensional world, phenomena that could only be explained on the supposition of a four-dimensional space.

In other words,

. . . . we ought to ascertain whether anything pertaining to the four-dimensional regions can manifest itself in our three-dimensional world . . . . can it not be reflected in it? . . . .

The occultist would answer, that our senses can most undeniably be reached on this plane, not only from a four-dimensional but even a fifth and sixth-dimensional world. Only those senses must become sufficiently spiritualized for it, in so far as it is our inner sense only that can become the medium for such a transmission. Like “the projection of an object that exists in a space of three dimensions can be made to appear on the flat surface of a screen of only two dimensions”—four-dimensional beings and things can be reflected in our three-dimensional world of gross matter. But, as it would require a skilful physicist to make his audience believe that the things “real as life” they see on his screen are not shadows but realities, so it would take a wiser one than any of us to persuade a man of science—let alone a crowd of scientific men—that what he sees reflected on our three-dimensional “screen” may be, at times, and under certain conditions, a very real phenomenon, reflected from, and produced by “four-dimensional powers,” for his private delectation, and as a means to convince him. “Nothing so false in appearance as naked truth”—is a Kabbalistic saying;—“truth is often stranger than fiction”—is a world-known axiom.

It requires more than a man of our modern science to realize such a possibility as an interchange of phenomena between the two worlds—the visible and the invisible.

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A highly spiritual, or a very keen impressionable intellect, is necessary to decipher intuitionally the real from the unreal, the natural from the artificially prepared “screen.” Yet our age is a reactionary one, hooked on the very end of the Cyclic coil, or what remains of it. This accounts for the flood of phenomena, as also for the blindness of certain people.

What does materialistic science answer to the idealistic theory of a four-dimensional space? “How!” it exclaims, “and would you make us attempt, while circumscribed within the impossible circle of a three-dimensional space, to even think of a space of higher dimensions! But how is it possible to think of that, which our human thought can never imagine and represent even in its most hazy outlines? One need be quite a different being from a human creature; be gifted with quite a different psychic organization; one must not be a man, in short, to find himself enabled to represent in his thought a four-dimensional space, a thing of length, breadth, thickness and—what else?”

Indeed, “what else?”—for no one of the men of science, who advocate it, perhaps only because they are sincere spiritualists and anxious to explain phenomena by the means of that space, seem to know it themselves. Is it the “passage of matter through matter”? Then why should they insist upon it being a “space” when it is simply another plane of existence—or at least that is what ought to be meant by it—if it means anything. We occultists say and maintain, that if a name is needed to satisfy the material conceptions of men on our low plane, let them call it by its Hindu name Mahar (or Maharloka)—the fourth world of the higher septenary, and one that corresponds to Rasatala (the fourth of the septenary string of the nether worlds)—the fourteen worlds that “sprung from the quintuplicated elements”; for these two worlds are enveloping, so to say, our present fourth-round world. Every Hindu will understand what is meant. Mahar is a higher world, or plane of existence rather; as that plane to which belongs the ant just spoken of, is perchance a

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lower one of the nether septenary chains. And if they call it so—they will be right.

Indeed, people speak of this four-dimensional space as though it were a locality—a sphere instead of being what it is––quite a different state of Being. Ever since it came to be resurrected in people’s minds by Prof. Zöllner, it has led to endless confusion. How did it happen? By the means of an abstruse mathematical analysis a spiritual-minded man of science finally came to the laudable conclusion that our conception of space may not be infallible, nor is it absolutely proven that besides our three-dimensional calculations it is mathematically impossible that there are spaces of more or less dimensions in the wide Universe. But, as is well expressed by a sceptic— . . . . the confession of the possible existence of spaces of different dimensions than our own does not afford us (the high mathematicians) the slightest conception of what those dimensions really are. To accept a higher “four-dimensional” space is like accepting infinitude: such an acceptation does not afford us the smallest help by which we might represent to ourselves either of these ...... all we know of such higher spaces is, that they have nothing in common with our conceptions of space.” (Scientific Letters.)

“Our conception”—means of course the conception of materialistic Science, thus leaving a pretty wide margin for other less scientific, withal more spiritual, minds.

To show the hopelessness of ever bringing a materialistic mind to realize or even conceive in the most remote and hazy way the presence among us, in our three-dimensional world of other higher planes of being, I may quote from the very interesting objections made by one of the two learned opponents,* already referred to, with regard to this “Space.”

He asks: “Is it possible to introduce as an explanation of certain phenomena the action of such a factor, of which we know nothing certain, are ignorant even of its nature and its faculties?” –––––––––– * 1883––Scientific Letters––published in the Novoye Vremya. ––––––––––

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Perchance, there are such, who may “know” something, who are not so hopelessly ignorant. If an occultist were appealed to, he would say—No; exact physical science has to reject its very being, otherwise that science would become metaphysical. It cannot be analyzed—hence explained, on either biological or even physiological data. Nevertheless, it might, inductively––as gravitation for instance, of which you know no more than that its effects may be observed on our three-dimensional earth.

Again (1) “It is said” (by the advocates of the theory) “that we live unconditionally in our three-dimensional space! Perchance” (unconditionally) “just because we are able to comprehend only such space, and absolutely incapable, owing to our organization, to realize it in any other, but a three-dimensional way!”

(2) In other words, “even our three-dimensional space is not something existing independently, but represents merely the product of our understanding and perceptions.”

To the first statement Occultism answers that those “incapable to realize” any other space but a three-dimensional one, do well to leave alone all others. But it is not “owing to our [human] organization,” but only to the intellectual organization of those who are not able to conceive of any other; to organisms undeveloped spiritually and even mentally in the right direction. To the second statement it would reply, that the “opponent” is absolutely wrong in the first, and absolutely right in the last portion of his sentence. For, though the “fourth dimension”—if we must so call it––exists no more independently of our perceptions and senses than our three-dimensional imagined space, nor as a locality, it still is, and exists for the beings evoluted and born in it as “a product of their understanding and their perceptions.” Nature never draws too harsh lines of demarcation, never builds impassable walls, and her unbridged “chasms” exist merely in the tame conceptions of certain naturalists. The two (and more) “spaces,” or planes of being, are sufficiently interblended to allow of a communication

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between those of their respective inhabitants who are capable of conceiving both a higher and a lower plane. There may be amphibian beings intellectually as there are amphibious creatures terrestrially. The objector to a fourth-dimensional plane complains that the section of high mathematics, known at present under the name of “Metamathematics,” or “Metageometry,” is being misused and misapplied by the spiritualists. They “seized hold of, and fastened to it as to an anchor of salvation.” His arguments are, to say the least, curious. “Instead of proving the reality of their mediumistic phenomena,” he says,

they took to explaining them on the hypothesis of a fourth dimension. Do we see the hand of a Katie King, which disappears in “unknown space”—forthwith on the proscenium—the fourth dimension; do we get knots on a rope whose two ends are tied and sealed—again that fourth dimension. From this standpoint space is viewed as something objective. It is believed that there are indeed in nature three, four and five-dimensional spaces. But, firstly, by the means of mathematical analysis, we might arrive, in this way, at an endless series of spaces. Only think, what would become of exact sciences, if, to explain phenomena, such hypothetical spaces were called to its help. If one should fail, we could evoke another, a still higher one, and so on . . . . Oh, poor Kant! And yet we are told that one of his fundamental principles was—that our three-dimensional space is not an absolute one; and that “even in respect to such axioms as those of Euclid’s geometry, our knowledge and sciences can only be relatively exact and real.” But why should exact science be thought in danger only because spiritualists try to explain their phenomena on that plane? And on what other could they explain that which is inexplicable if we undertake to analyze it on the three-dimensional conceptions of terrestrial science, if not by the fourth-dimensional conception? No sane man would undertake to explain the Daïmon of Socrates by the shape of the great sage’s nose, or attribute the inspiration of The Light of Asia to Mr. Edwin Arnold’s skull cap. What would become of science—verily, were the phenomena left to be explained on the said hypothesis? Nothing worse, we hope, than what became of

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science, after the Royal Society had accepted its modern theory of Light, on the hypothesis of an universal Ether. Ether is no less “a product of our understanding” than Space is. And if one could be accepted, then why reject the other? Is it because one can be materialized in our conceptions, or shall we say had to be, since there was no help for it; and that the other, being useless as a hypothesis for the purposes of exact science, is not, so far?

So far as the Occultists are concerned, they are at one with the man of strict orthodox science, when to the offer made “to experiment and to observe whether there may not occur in our three-dimensional world phenomena, explainable only on the hypothesis of the existence of a space of four dimensions,” they answer as they do. “Well”—they say—”and shall observation and experiment give us a satisfactory answer to our question concerning the real existence of a higher four-dimensional space? Or, solve for us a dilemma unsolvable from whatever side we approach it? How can our human observation and our human experiments, possible only unconditionally within the limits of a space of three dimensions, serve us as a point of departure for the recognition of phenomena which can be explained “only if we admit the existence of a four-dimensional space”?

The above objections are quite right we think; and the spiritualists would be the only losers were they to ever prove the existence of such space or its interference in their phenomena. For see, what would happen. No sooner would it be demonstrated that—say, a ring does pass through solid flesh and emigrate from the arm of the medium on to that of the investigator who holds the two hands of the former; or again, that flowers and other material things are brought through closed doors and walls; and that, therefore, owing to certain exceptional conditions, matter can pass through matter—no sooner would the men of science get collectively convinced of the fact, than the whole theory of spirit agency and intelligent intervention would crumple to dust. The three-dimensional space would not be interfered with, for the

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passage of one solid through the other does nothing to do away with even metageometrical dimensions, but matter would be probably endowed by the learned bodies with one more faculty, and the hands of the materialists strengthened thereby. Would the world be nearer the solution of psychic mystery? Shall the noblest aspirations of mankind after the knowledge of real spiritual existence on those planes of being that are now confused with the “four-dimensional space” be the nearer to solution, because exact science shall have admitted as a physical law the action of one man walking deliberately through the physical body of another man, or through a stone wall? Occult sciences teach us that at the end of the Fourth Race,* matter, which evolutes, progresses and changes, as we do along with the rest of the kingdoms of nature, shall acquire its fourth sense, as it acquires an additional one with every new Race. Therefore, to an Occultist there is nothing surprising in the idea that the physical world should be developing and acquiring new faculties—a simple modification of matter, new as it now seems to science, as incomprehensible as were at first the powers of steam, sound, electricity. . . But what does seem surprising is the spiritual stagnation in the world of intellect, and of the highest exoteric knowledge.

However, no one can impede or precipitate the progress of the smallest cycle. But perhaps old Tacitus was right: “Truth is established by investigation and delay; falsehood prospers by precipitancy.” We live in an age of steam and mad activity, and truth can hardly expect recognition in this century. The Occultist waits and bides his time.

H. P. BLAVATSKY.

–––––––––– * [There is an error here which must have been overlooked when the article was first published. In place of “Race” read “Round.” After “matter” supply: “Prithivîtattva—the fourth cosmic element-principle.” After the word ‘sense;’ supply: “the fourth evolutional phase of Prithivî.” In place of the last word in the sentence (“Race”) read “Round” —Compiler.] ––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII October, 1886

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ANCIENT MAGIC IN MODERN SCIENCE

[The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, No. 85, October, 1886, pp. 1-8]

Pauthier, the French Indianist, may, or may not, be taxed with too much enthusiasm when saying that India appears before him as the grand and primitive focus of human thought, whose steady flame has ended by communicating itself to, and setting on fire the whole ancient world *—yet, he is right in his statement. It is Aryan metaphysics† that have led the mind to occult knowledge—the oldest and the mother science of all, since it contains within itself all the other sciences. And it is occultism—the synthesis of all the discoveries in nature and, chiefly, of the psychic potency within and beyond every physical atom of matter—that has been the primitive bond that has cemented into one corner-stone the foundations of all the religions of antiquity.

The primitive spark has set on fire every nation, truly, and Magic underlies now every national faith, whether old or young. Egypt and Chaldea are foremost in the ranks of those countries that furnish us with the most –––––––––– * Essay. Preface by Colebrooke. [This reference is rather misleading. What is meant is H. T. Colebrooke, Essai sur la philosophie des Hindous Translated from the English by Jean Pierre Guillaume Pauthier. Paris, 1833. In the Preface by the translator, the following passage occurs:

“Au milieu de ce monde presque tout nouveau pour nous, I’Inde, avec sa langue sanscrite si savante et si métaphysique, avec sa pensée religieuse si profonde et si sublime, sa pensée philosophique si abstraite et si hardie, son imagination si poétique et si gigantesque, et sa nature si merveilleuse et si féconde, nous apparaît comme le grand et antique foyer de la pensée humaine, comme le point central et rayonnant de ce vaste cercle d’idées philosophiques et religieuses, d’idiomes frappants de consaguinité, qui a enveloppé la haute Asie et qui a fini par embrasser presque tout l’ancien monde. . . . . ” ––Compiler.] † It is only through Mr. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire that the world has learnt that “with regard to metaphysics, the Hindu genius has ever remained in a kind of infantile underdevelopment “!! ––––––––––

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evidence upon the subject, helpless as they are to do as India does—to protect their paleographic relics from desecration. The turbid waters of the canal of Suez carry along to those that wash the British shores, the magic of the earliest days of Pharaonic Egypt, to fill up with its crumbled dust the British, French, German and Russian museums. Ancient, historical Magic is thus reflecting itself upon the scientific records of our own all-denying century. It forces the hand and tires the brain of the scientist, laughing at his efforts to interpret its meaning in his own materialistic way, yet helps the occultist better to understand modern Magic, the rickety, weak grandchild of her powerful, archaic grandam. Hardly a hieratic papyrus exhumed along with the swathed mummy of King or Priest-Hierophant, or a weather-beaten, indecipherable inscription from the tormented sites of Babylonia or Nineveh, or an ancient tile-cylinder—that does not furnish new food for thought or some suggestive information to the student of Occultism. Withal, magic is denied and termed the “superstition” of the ignorant ancient philosopher.

Thus, magic in every papyrus; magic in all the religious formulae; magic bottled up in hermetically-closed vials, many thousands of years old; magic in elegantly bound, modern works; magic in the most popular novels; magic in social gatherings; magic—worse than that, SORCERY—in the very air one breathes in Europe, America, Australia: the more civilized and cultured a nation, the more formidable and effective the effluvia of unconscious magic it emits and stores away in the surrounding atmosphere . . .

Tabooed, derided magic would, of course, never be accepted under her legitimate name; yet science has begun dealing with that ostracised science under modern masks, and very considerably. But what is in a name? Because a wolf is scientifically defined as an animal of the genus canis, does it make of him a dog? Men of science may prefer to call the magic inquired into by Porphyry and explained by Iamblichus hysterical hypnosis, but that

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does not make it the less magic. The result and outcome of primitive Revelation to the earlier races by their “Divine Dynasties,” the kings-instructors, became innate knowledge in the Fourth race, that of the Atlanteans; and that knowledge is now called in its rare cases of “abnormal” genuine manifestation, mediumship. The secret history of the world, preserved only in far-away, secure retreats, would alone, if told unreservedly, inform the present generations of the powers that lie latent, and to most unknown, in man and nature. It was the fearful misuse of magic by the Atlanteans, that led their race to utter destruction, and—to oblivion. The tale of their sorcery and wicked enchantments has reached us, through classical writers, in fragmentary bits, as legends and childish fairy-tales, and as fathered on smaller nations. Thence the scorn for necromancy, goëtic magic, and theurgy. The “witches” of Thessaly are not less laughed at in our day than the modern medium or the credulous Theosophist. This is again due to sorcery, and one should never lack the moral courage to repeat the term; for it is the fatally abused magic that forced the adepts, “the Sons of Light,” to bury it deep, after its sinful votaries had themselves found a watery grave at the bottom of the ocean; thus placing it beyond the reach of the profane of the race that succeeded to the Atlanteans. It is, then, to sorcery that the world is indebted for its present ignorance about it. But who or what class in Europe or America, will believe the report? With one exception, none; and that exception is found in the Roman Catholics and their clergy; but even they, while bound by their religious dogmas to credit its existence, attribute to it a satanic origin. It is this theory which, no doubt, has to this day prevented magic from being dealt with scientifically.

Still, nolens volens, science has to take it in hand. Archaeology in its most interesting department—Egyptology and Assyriology—is fatally wedded to it, do what it may. For magic is so mixed up with the world’s history that, if the latter is ever to be written at all in its

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completeness, giving the truth and nothing but the truth, there seems to be no help for it. If Archaeology counts still upon discoveries and reports upon hieratic writings that will be free from the hateful subject, then HISTORY will never be written, we fear.

One sympathises profoundly with, and can well imagine, the embarrassing position of the various savants and “F.R.S.’s,” of Academicians and Orientalists. Forced to decipher, translate and interpret old mouldy papyri, inscriptions on steles and Babylonian rhombs, they find themselves at every moment face to face with MAGIC! Votive offerings, carvings, hieroglyphics, incantations—the whole paraphernalia of that hateful “superstition”—stare them in the eyes, demand their attention, fill them with the most disagreeable perplexity. Only think what must be their feelings in the following case in hand. An evidently precious papyrus is exhumed. It is the postmortem passport furnished to the osirified soul * of a just-translated Prince or even Pharaoh, written in red and black characters by a learned and famous scribe, say of the IVth Dynasty, under the supervision of an Egyptian Hierophant—a class considered in all the ages and held by posterity as the most learned of the learned, among the ancient sages and philosophers. The statements therein were written at the solemn hours of the death and burial of a King-Hierophant, of a Pharaoh and ruler. The purpose of the paper is the introduction of the “soul” to the awful region of Amenti, before its judges, there where a lie is said to outweigh every other crime. The Orientalist carries away the papyrus and devotes to its interpretation days, perhaps weeks, of labour, only to find in it the following statement: “In the XIIIth year and the second month of Schomoo, in the 28th day of the same, we, the first High-priest of Ammon, the king of the

–––––––––– * The reader need not be told that every soul newly-born into its cycle of 3000 years after the death of the body it animated, became in Egypt, an “Osiris,” was osirified, viz., the personality became reduced to its higher principles, a spirit. ––––––––––

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gods, Penotman, the son of the delegate (or substitute)* for the High-priest Pion-kimoan, and the scribe of the temple of Sosser-soo-khons and of the Necropolis Bootegamonmoo, began to dress the late Prince Oozirmari Pionokha, etc., etc., preparing him for eternity. When ready, the mummy was pleased to arise and thank his servants, as also to accept a cover worked for him by the hand of the ‘lady singer,’ Nefrelit Nimutha, gone into eternity the year so-and-so” —some hundred years before! The whole in hieroglyphics.

This may be a mistaken reading. There are dozens of papyri, though, well authenticated and recording more curious readings and narratives than that corroborated in this, by Sanchoniathon † and Manetho, by Herodotus and Plato, Syncellus and dozens of other writers and philosophers, who mention the subject. Those papyri note down very often, as seriously as any historical fact needing no special corroboration, whole dynasties of Kings’-manes, viz., of phantoms and ghosts. The same is found in the histories of other nations. –––––––––– * “Substitute” was the name given to the father of the “Son” adopted by the High-priest Hierophant; a class of these remaining unmarried, and adopting “Sons” for purposes of transmission of power and succession. † [Sanchuniathôn ( ), sometimes referred to as Suniaethôn ( ), is supposed to have been an ancient Phoenician writer, possibly a hierophant of the mysteries, whose works were translated into Greek by Herennius Philo of Byblus who lived in the latter half of the first century of the Christian era. A considerable fragment of this translation has been preserved by Eusebius in the first book of his Praeparatio Evangelica (chaps. vi and x) He is mentioned by Athenaeus, Mochus and Porphyry, among the ancient writers, though our evidence for his actual existence is confined to the testimony of Philo of Byblus alone. The genuineness of his writings has been questioned by many scholars. Sanchuniathôn may have been a native of Berytus, although his name may be only a generic term for a body of teachings concerning Phoenician occult lore and cosmogony. His works are supposed to have been: Of the Physical System of Hermes; Egyptian Theology; and Theology of the Phoenicians. Remaining fragments of his teachings can be found in Cory’s Ancient Fragments, London, 1832; new ed., 1876.––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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All claim for their first and earliest dynasties * of rulers and kings, what the Greeks called Manes and the Egyptians Urvagan, “gods,” etc. Rosellini has tried to interpret the puzzling statement, but in vain. “The word manes meaning; urvagan,” he says, “and that term in its literal sense signifying exterior image, we may suppose, if it were possible to bring down that dynasty within some historical period—that the word referred to some form of theocratic government, represented by the images of the gods and priests”!! † A dynasty of, to all appearances, living, at all events acting and ruling, kings turning out to have been simply mannikins and images, would require, to be accepted, a far wider stretch of modern credulity than even “kings’ phantoms.” Were these Hierophants and Scribes, Pharaohs and King-Initiates all fools or frauds, confederates and liars, –––––––––– * The Secret Doctrine teaches that those dynasties were composed of divine beings, “the ethereal images of human creatures,” in reality, “gods,” in their luminous astral bodies; the Śishtas of preceeding manvantaras. † Ippolito Rosellini, I Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia, Vol. I, p. 8 and footnote. He adds that Manetho and the old Chronicles agree in translating the word manes by . In the Chronicle of Eusebius Pamphili, discovered at Milan and annotated by Cardinal Mai, the word is also translated urvagan, “the exterior shadow” or “ethereal image of men”; in short, the astral body. [The original Italian text of this passage from Rosellini is as follows: “. . . . . Dalle memorie egizie di Manetone, che compose in tre libri la sua storia. Degli Dei e degli Eroi e dei Mani ( ) **. . . . –––––––––– ** “Non è inutile la nota dell’ Eusebio milanese alla voce Manes, , ove dicesi che nel testo armeno è resa per la parola URVAGAN ‘quae proprie significat externam speciem oppositam ipsius rei veritati: inde figuram et imaginem deorum.’ Che se le dinastie degli Dei in Egitto potessero riportarsi ad epoca storica, sarebbe da credersi che consistessero in una forma di governo teocratico rappresentato della immagine del Dio, e amministrato dai sacerdoti.” ––––––––––

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to have either believed themselves or tried to make other people believe in such cock-and-bull stories, if there were no truth at the foundation? And that for a long series of millenniums, from the first to the last Dynasty?

Of the divine Dynasty of Manes, the text of The Secret Doctrine will treat more fully; * but a few such feats may be recorded from genuine papyri and the discoveries of archaeology. The Orientalists have found a plank of salvation: though forced to publish the contents of some famous papyri, they now call them Romances of the days of Pharaoh so-and-so. The device is ingenious, if not absolutely honest. The literary Sadducees may fairly rejoice.

One of such is the so-called Lepsius Papyrus of the Berlin Museum, now purchased by the latter from the heirs of Richard Lepsius. It is written in hieratic characters in the archaic Egyptian (old Coptic) tongue, and is considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of our age, inasmuch as it furnishes dates for comparison, and rectifies several mistakes in the order of dynastical successions. Unfortunately its most important fragments are missing. The learned Egyptologists who had the greatest difficulty in deciphering it have concluded

–––––––––– It should be noted that in H. P. B.’s text above, her expression, “ what the Greeks called Manes,” seems to be a lapsus calami. It is the Romans who used this term with several related meanings. Apart from the term , nekuas, the Greeks used the expressions , theoi katachthonioi, and theoi daimones, for the Di Manes of the Romans, as appears from a number of funereal inscriptions and similar sources.

In an ancient epitaph of a certain Julius Terentius, found in the cxcavations of Dura-Europos, the Greek expression of , psychai theai, seems to convey a meaning practically identical with the term manes, though its literal translation into Latin would be Di (or Deae) Animae. (See Harvard Theological Review, Vol. XXXIV, April, 1941, essay by C. B. Welles.) —Compiler.] * [Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, 266-67; and Vol. II, pp. 351 et seq., especially pp. 365-69; also Vol II, pp. 435-36, 487, original edition. Several of the passages in the present article occur in slightly altered form in the essay on “ Egyptian Magic “ which follows it.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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that it was “an historical romance of the XVIth century B.C.,* dating back to events that took place during the reign of Pharaoh Cheops, the supposed builder of the pyramid of that name, who flourished in the XXVIth [?] century before our era.” It shows Egyptian life and the state of society at the Court of that great Pharaoh, nearly 900 years before the little unpleasantness between Joseph and Mrs. Potiphar. The first scene opens with King Cheops on his throne, surrounded by his sons, whom he commands to entertain him with narratives about hoary antiquity and the miraculous powers exercised by the celebrated sages and magicians at the Court of his predecessor. Prince Chefren then tells his audience how a magus during the epoch of Pharaoh Nebkha fabricated a crocodile out of wax and endowed him with life and obedience. Having been placed by a husband in the room of his faithless spouse, the crocodile snapped at both the wife and her lover, and seizing them carried them both into the sea. Another prince told a story of his grandfather, the parent of Cheops, Pharaoh SENEFRU. Feeling seedy, he commanded a magician into his presence, who advised him as a remedy the spectacle of twenty beautiful maidens of the Court sporting in a boat on the lake near by. The maidens obeyed and the heart of the old despot was “refreshed.” But suddenly one of the ladies screamed and began to weep aloud. She had dropped into the water, 120 feet deep in that spot, a rich necklace. Then a magician pronounced a formula, called the genii of the air and water to his help, and plunging his hand into the waves brought back with it the necklace. The Pharaoh was greatly struck with the feat. He looked no more at the twenty beauties, “divested of their clothes, covered with nets, and with twenty oars made of ebony and gold”; but commanded that sacrifices should be made –––––––––– * Supposititiously––during the XVIIIth Dynasty of kings, agreeably to Manetho’s Synchronistic Tables, disfigured out of recognition by the able Eusebius, the too clever Bishop of Caesarea. ––––––––––

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to the manes of those two magicians when they died. To this Prince Gardadathu remarked that the highest among such magicians never die, and that one of them lived to that day, more than a centenarian, at the town of Deyd-Snefroo; that his name was Deddy; and that he had the miraculous power of re-uniting cut-off heads to their bodies and recalling the whole to life, as also full authority and sway over the lions of the desert. He, Deddy, knew likewise where to procure the needed expensive materials for the temple of the God Thoth (the wisdom deity), which edifice Pharaoh Cheops was anxious to raise near his great pyramid. Upon hearing this, the mighty king Cheops expressed desire to see the old sage at his Court! Thereupon the Prince Gardadathu started on his journey, and brought back with him the great magician.

After long greetings and mutual compliments and obeisance, according to the papyrus, a long conversation ensued between the Pharaoh and the sage, which goes on briefly thus:—

“I am told, oh sage, that thou art able to re-unite heads severed from their bodies to the latter.”

“I can do so, great King,”—answered Deddy.

“Let a criminal be brought here, without delay,” quoth the Pharaoh.

“Great King, my power does not extend to men. I can resurrect only animals,”—remarked the sage.

A goose was then brought, its head cut off and placed in the east corner of the hall, and its body at the western side. Deddy extended his arm in the two directions in turn and muttered a magic formula. Forthwith the body of the bird arose and walked to the centre of the hall, and the head rolled up to meet it. Then the head jumped on the bleeding neck; the two were re-united; and the goose began to walk about, none the worse for the operation of beheading.

The same wonderful feat was repeated by Deddy upon canaries and a bull. After which the Pharaoh desired to

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be informed with regard to the projected Temple of Thoth. The sage-magician knew all about the old remains of the temple, hidden in a certain house at Heliopolis: but he had no right to reveal it to the king. The revelation had to come from the eldest of the three triplets of Rad-Dedtoo. “ The latter is the wife of the priest of the Sun, at the city of Saheboo. She will conceive the triplet-sons from the sun-god, and these children will play an important part in the history of the land of Khemi (Egypt), inasmuch as they will be called to rule it. The eldest, before he becomes a Pharaoh, will be High-priest of the Sun at the city of Heliopolis. “Upon hearing this, Pharaoh Cheops rent his clothes in grief: his dynasty would thus be overthrown by the son of the deity to whom he was actually raising a temple!” Here the papyrus is torn; and a large portion of it being missing, posterity is denied the possibility of learning what Pharaoh Cheops undertook in this emergency. The fragment that follows apprises us of that which is evidently the chief subject of the archaic record—the birth of the three sons of the sun-god. As soon as Rad-Dedtoo felt the pangs of childbirth, the great sun-god called the goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Mesehentoo, and Hekhtoo, and sent them to help the priestess, saying: She is in labour with my three sons who will, one day, be the rulers of this land. Help her, and they will raise temples for you, will make innumerable libations of wine and sacrifices.” The goddesses did as they were asked, and three boys, each one yard long and with very long arms,* were born. Isis gave them their names and Nephthys blessed them, while the two other goddesses confirmed on them their glorious future. The three young men became eventually kings of the Vth Dynasty, their names being Ouserkath, Sagoorey and Kakäy. ––––––––––– * Long arms in Egypt meant as now in India, a sign of mahatma-ship, or adeptship. –––––––––––

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After the goddesses had returned to their celestial mansions some great miracle occurred. The corn given the mother-goddesses returned of itself into the corn-bin in an out-house of the High-priest, and the servants reported that voices of invisibles were singing in it the hymns sung at the birth of hereditary princes, and the sounds of music, and dances belonging to that rite were distinctly heard. This phenomenon endangered, later on, the lives of the future kings—the triplets. A female slave having been punished once by the High-priestess, the former ran away from the house, and spoke thus to the assembled crowds: “How dare she punish me, that woman who gave birth to three kings? I will go and notify it to Pharaoh Cheops, our lord.” At this interesting place, the papyrus is again torn; and the reader left once more in ignorance of what resulted from the denunciation, and how the three boy-pretenders avoided the persecution of the paramount ruler.* –––––––––– * This is the more to be regretted—says the translator of the papyrus—that “legendary details, notwithstanding the contents of the Lepsius papyrus are evidently based upon the most ancient traditions; and as a matter of fact emanate from eye-witnesses and firsthand evidence.” The data in the papyrus are absolutely coincident with facts known, and agree with the discoveries made by Egyptology and the undeniable information obtained concerning the history and far away events of that “land of mystery and riddle,” as Hegel called it. Therefore we have no cause whatever to doubt the authenticity of the general narrative contained in our papyrus. It reveals to us, likewise, entirely new historical facts. Thus, we learn, first of all, that (Kefren or) Chephren was the son of Cheops; that the Vth Dynasty originated in the town of Saheboo; that its first three Pharaohs were three brothers—and that the elder of the triplets had been a solar High-priest at Heliopolis before ascending to the throne. Meagre as the details appear, they become quite important in the history of events removed from us by more than forty centuries. Finally, the Lepsius papyrus is an extremely ancient document, written in the old Egyptian tongue, while the events narrated therein may, for their originality (magic?), be placed on a par with the best Egyptian narratives translated and published by the famous Egyptologist and Archaeologist, Mr. Maspéro, in his work called Les contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne. ––––––––––

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Another magical feat is given by Mariette Bey (Monuments divers, etc., pl. 9, Persian epoch) * from a tablet in the Bulak Museum, concerning the Ethiopian kingdom founded by the descendants of the High-priests of Amon, wherein flourished absolute theocracy. It was the god himself, it appears, who selected the kings at his fancy, and “the stele 114 which is an official statement about the election of Aspalout, shows how such events took place.” (Jebel-Barkal.) The army gathered near the Holy Mountain at Napata, choosing six officers who had to join other delegates of state, proposed to proceed to the election of a king. “Come,” reads the inscribed legend,

“Come, let us choose a master who would be like an irresistible young bull.” And the army began lamenting, saying: “Our master is with us, and we know him not as yet! How can we know him?” And everyone of them said to the other: “No one knows him, save Râ himself; may the god protect him from every harm wherever he may be! . . . .” Forthwith, the whole army of His Majesty exclaimed with one voice: “But there is that god Amon-Râ, of the Holy Mountain, and he is the god of Ethiopia! Let us go to him; let us not speak in ignorance of him, for the word spoken in ignorance of him is not good! Let him choose, who is the god of the kingdom of Ethiopia, since the days of Râ. He will guide us, as the Ethiopian kings are all his handiwork, and he gives the kingdom to the son whom he loves . . . .” This is what the entire army saith: “It is an excellent speech, in truth, a million of times.” Then the narrative shows the delegates duly purified, proceeding to the temple and prostrating themselves before the huge statue of Amon-Râ, while framing their request. The Ethiopian priests knew how to fabricate miraculous images, capable of motion and speech [to serve as vehicles for the gods]; it is an art they held from their Egyptian ancestors (Maspéro, Notes sur différents points de Grammaire et d’Histoire, dans le Recueil, t. I, pp. 152-60). All the members of the Royal family pass in procession –––––––––– * [The reference is to the work entitled: Monuments divers recueilli en Égypte et en Nubie par A. Mariette-pasha, ouvrage publié sous les auspices de S. A. Ismaïl. Texte par G. Maspéro. Paris: F. Vieweg, E. Bouillon, succ., 1889. 3 p. 107 pl. Publié en 28 livraisons, 1872-89. (British Museum, 1704, b. 22.)––Compiler.] ––––––––––

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before the statue, yet it remains motionless. But as soon as Aspalout approaches it, the statue seizes him and exclaims: “This is your king! This is your Master who will make you live!” And the army chiefs greet the Pharaoh. He enters into the sanctuary and is crowned by the god himself; then he joins his soldiers. The festival ends, as all such festivals end, with the distribution of bread and beer.

This stele has been translated in its entirety by G. Maspéro, Sur la stèle de l’Intronisation, trouvée au Djébel-Barkal, in the Revue Archéologique, 1873, Vol. XXV, pp. 300 et seq. Reproduced in the Records of the Past, Vol. VI, pp. 71-78.*

There is a number of papyri and old inscriptions proving beyond the slightest doubt that for thousands of years High-priests, magicians and Pharaohs believed—as well as the masses—in magic, besides practising it; the latter being liable to be referred to clever jugglery. The statues had to be fabricated; for, unless they were made of certain elements and stones, and were prepared under certain constellations, in accordance with the conditions prescribed by magic art, the divine (or infernal, if some will so have it) powers, or FORCES, that were expected to animate such statues and images, could not be made to act therein. A galvanic-battery has to be prepared of specific metals and materials, not made at random, if one would have it produce its magical effects. A photograph has to be obtained under specific conditions of darkness and certain chemicals, before it can result in a given purpose.

Some twenty years ago, archaeology was enriched with a very curious Egyptian document giving the views of that ancient religion upon the subject of ghosts (manes) and magic in general. It is called the “Harris Papyrus on Magic” (Papyrus magique). It is extremely curious in its bearing upon the esoteric teachings of Occult –––––––––– * [The original French text of G. Maspéro, in Monuments divers, etc., has been retranslated into English, as it was shown to contain a number of inaccuracies.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Theosophy, and is very suggestive. It is left for our next article––on MAGIC.

OSTENDE, July, 1886. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

[In this last paragraph, H.P.B. evidently refers to a work by François .Joseph Chabas entitled, Le Papyrus magique Harris: Traduction analytique et commentée d’un manuscript Égyptien, comprenant le texte hiératique, publié pour la première fois, un tableau phonétique, et un glossaire. Chalon-sur-Saône: impr. de J. Dejussieu, 1860. xi, 251 pp. et 11 pl. de Fac-simile (British Museum, 7703. bb. 6).

H.P.B. actually wrote an essay dealing to a very large extent with this Papyrus. It was published in 1897, in the volume entitled “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III,” pp. 241-57, under the title of “Egyptian Magic.”

In her article entitled “Theories About Reincarnation and Spirits” (The Path, New York, Vol. I, No. 8, November, 1886, pp. 231-45), H.P.B. definitely states that her essay on “Egyptian Magic” (as well as another one on “Chinese Spirits”) was to be one of the Appendices to The Secret Doctrine. This could not have referred to anything else but the original two volumes of her (then) prospective work, a portion of the MS. of which she had just sent to Adyar, for T. Subba Row to go over and correct.

As far as is known, the MS. sent to Adyar did not contain the text of this essay on “Egyptian Magic.”

This may be explained by the fact that in July, 1886, H.P.B., then at Ostende, intended to write an article for The Theosophist, on the subject of the Harris Papyrus, and probably planned to use the material she had already put together, as would obviously appear from the closing words of her essay on “Ancient Magic in Modern Science,” published above. It is possible that, having originally written it for The Secret Doctrine she was then working on, she had decided to use this material in The Theosophist instead.

For reasons unknown to us now, the essay on “Egyptian Magic” was not used at all during H.P.B.’s life-time. It is obvious, of course, from what has been said above, that this essay cannot be considered as being part of her MS. for the prospective Third or Fourth Volume of The Secret Doctrine, as planned by her. Such are the reasons why the essay on “Egyptian Magic” is published now, directly following the one on “Ancient Magic in Modern Science.”—Compiler.]

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1897

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EGYPTIAN MAGIC

[Originally published as Section xxvii in the Volume entitled “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III,” which appeared in print in 1897. It covers therein pages 241-257.]

[The superior numbers occurring throughout this essay refer to the COMPILER’S NOTES appended at the end of it. They should be consulted for clarification of various points.]

Few of our students of Occultism have had the opportunity of examining Egyptian papyri—those living, or rather re-arisen witnesses that Magic, good and bad, was practised many thousands of years back into the night of time. The use of the papyrus prevailed up to the eighth century of our era, when it was given up, and its fabrication fell into disuse. The most curious of the exhumed documents were immediately purchased and taken away from the country. Yet there are a number of beautifully preserved papyri at Bulak, Cairo, though the greater number have never been yet properly read.* Others—those that have been carried away and may be found in the museums and public libraries of Europe—have fared no better. In the days of Vicomte de Rougé, some twenty-five years ago, only a few of them “were two-thirds deciphered”; and among those some most interesting legends, inserted parenthetically and for purposes of explaining royal expenses, are in the Register of the Sacred Accounts. This may be verified in the so-called “Harris” and Anastasi collections, and in some papyri recently

–––––––––– * “The characters employed on those parchments,” writes de Mirville, “are sometimes hieroglyphics, placed perpendicularly, a kind of lineary tachygraphy (abridged characters like those of our stenography), where the image is often reduced to a simple stroke; at other times placed in horizontal lines; then the hieratic or sacred writing, going from right to left as in all Semitic languages; lastly, the characters of the country, , used for contracts, expense ledgers, etc., and which, since the Ptolemies, can be found on the monuments” [Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, pp. 81-82]. A copy of the Harris papyrus, translated by Chabas—Papyrus Magique—may be studied at the British Museum.1 ––––––––––

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exhumed; one of these gives an account of a whole series of magic feats performed before the Pharaohs Ramses II and III. A curious document, the first-mentioned, truly. It is a papyrus of the fifteenth century B.C., written during the reign of Ramses Vth, the last king of the eighteenth dynasty, and is the work of the scribe Thoutmes, who notes down some of the events with regard to defaulters occurring on the twelfth and thirteenth days of the month of Paophi. The document shows that in those days of “miracles” in Egypt the taxpayers were not found among the living alone, but every mummy was included. All and everything was taxed; and the Khou of the mummy, in default, was punished “by the priest-exorciser, who deprived it of the liberty of action.” Now what was the Khou? Simply the astral body, or the aerial simulacrum of the corpse or the mummy—that which in China is called the Houen, and in India the Bhût.

Upon reading this papyrus to-day, an Orientalist is pretty sure to fling it aside in disgust, attributing the whole affair to the crass superstition of the ancients. Truly phenomenal and inexplicable must have been the dullness and credulity of that otherwise highly philosophical and civilized nation if it could carry on for so many consecutive ages, for thousands of years, such a system of mutual deception! A system whereby the people were deceived by the priests, the priests by their King-Hierophants, and the latter themselves were cheated by the ghosts, which were, in their turn, but “the fruits of hallucination.” The whole of antiquity, from Menes to Cleopatra, from Manu to Vikramaditya, from Orpheus down to the last Roman augur, were hysterical, we are told. This must have been so, if the whole were not a system of fraud. Life and death were guided by, and were under the sway of, sacred “conjuring.” For there is hardly a papyrus, though it be a simple document of purchase and sale, a deed belonging to daily transactions of the most ordinary kind, that has not Magic, white or black, mixed up in it. It looks as though sacred scribes

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of the Nile had purposely, and in a prophetic spirit of race-hatred, carried out the (to them) most unprofitable task of deceiving and puzzling the generations of a future white race of unbelievers yet unborn! Anyhow, the papyri are full of Magic, as are likewise the stelae. We learn, moreover, that the papyrus was not merely a smooth-surfaced parchment, a fabric made of

Ligneous matter from a shrub, the pellicles of which superposed one over the other formed a kind of writing-paper [Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, p. 81];

but that the shrub itself, the implements and tools for fabricating the parchment, etc., were all previously subjected to a process of magical preparation—according to the ordinance of the Gods, who had taught that art, as they had all others, to their Priest-Hierophants.

There are, however, some modern Orientalists who seem to have an inkling of the true nature of such things, and especially of the analogy and the relations that exist between the Magic of old and our modern-day phenomena. Chabas is one of these, for he indulges, in his translation of the “Harris” papyrus, in the following reflections:

Without having recourse to the imposing ceremonies of the wand of Hermes, or to the obscure formulae of an unfathomable mysticism, a mesmerizer in our own day will, by means of a few passes, disturb the organic faculties of a subject, inculcate the knowledge of foreign languages, transport him to a far-distant country, or into secret places, make him guess the thoughts of those absent, read in closed letters, etc. The antre of the modern sybil is a modest-looking room, the tripod of the pythoness has made room for a small round table, a hat, a plate, a piece of furniture of the most vulgar kind; only the latter is even superior to the oracle of antiquity [how does M. Chabas know?], inasmuch as the latter only spoke,* while

–––––––––– * And what of the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” the words that “the fingers of a man’s hand,” whose body and arm remained invisible, wrote on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace? (Daniel, v.) What of the writings of Simon the Magician, and the magic characters on the walls and in the air of the crypts of Initiation, without mentioning the tables of stone on which the finger of God wrote the –––––––––––

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the oracle of our day writes its answers. At the command of the medium the spirits of the dead descend to make the furniture creak, and the authors of bygone centuries deliver to us works written by them beyond the grave. Human credulity has no narrower limits to-day than it had at the dawn of historical times . . . . As teratology is an essential part of general physiology now, so the pretended Occult Sciences occupy in the annals of humanity a place which is not without its importance, and deserve for more than one reason the attention of the philosopher and the historian.*

Selecting the two Champollions, Lenormant, Bunsen, Vicomte de Rougé, and several other Egyptologists to serve as our witnesses, let us see what they say of Egyptian Magic and Sorcery. They may get out of the difficulty by accounting for each “superstitious belief” and practice by attributing them to a chronic psychological and physiological derangement, and to collective hysteria, if they like; still facts are there, staring us in the face, from the hundreds of these mysterious papyri, exhumed after a rest of four, five, and more thousands of years, with their magical containments and evidence of ante-diluvian Magic.

A small library, found at Thebes, has furnished fragments of every kind of ancient literature, many of which are dated, and several of which have thus been assigned to the accepted age of Moses. Books or manuscripts on ethics, history, religion and medicine, calendars and registers, poems and novels everything—may be had in that precious collection; and old legends—traditions of long forgotten ages (please to remark this: legends recorded during the Mosaic period)—are already referred to therein as belonging to an immense antiquity, to the period of the dynasties of Gods and Giants. Their chief

–––––––––– commandments ? Between the writing of one God and other Gods the difference, if any, lies only in their respective natures; and if the tree is to be known by its fruits, then preference would have to be given always to the Pagan Gods. It is the immortal “To be or not to be.” Either all of them are—or at any rate, may be—true, or all are surely pious frauds and the result of credulity. * Le Papyrus magique Harris, pp. 186-87.2 ––––––––––

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contents, however, are formulae of exorcisms against black Magic, and funeral rituals: true breviaries, or the vade mecum of every pilgrim-traveller in eternity. These funeral texts are generally written in hieratic characters. At the head of the papyrus is invariably placed a series of scenes, showing the defunct appearing before a host of Deities successively, who have to examine him. Then comes the judgment of the Soul, while the third act begins with the launching of that Soul into the divine light. Such papyri are often forty feet long.* The following is extracted from general descriptions. It will show how the moderns understand and interpret Egyptian (and other) Symbology. The papyrus of the priest Névo-loo (or Névolen), at the Louvre; may be selected for one case. First of all there is the bark carrying the coffin, a black chest containing the defunct’s mummy. His mother, Amenbem-Heb, and his sister, Huissannub, are near; at the head and feet of the corpse stand Nephthys and Isis clothed in red, and near them a priest of Osiris clad in his panther’s skin, his censer in his right hand, and four assistants carrying the mummy’s intestines. The coffin is received by the God Anubis (of the jackal’s head), from the hands of female weepers. Then the Soul rises from its mummy and the Khou (astral body) of the defunct. The former begins its worship of the four genii of the East, of the sacred birds, and of the spirit of Atmon as a ram. Brought into the “Palace of Truth,” the defunct is before his judges. While the Soul, a scarabaeus, stands in the presence of Osiris, his astral Khou is at the door. Much laughter is provoked in the West by the invocations to various Deities, presiding over each of the limbs of the mummy, and of the living human body. Only judge: in the papyrus of the mummy Petamenoph “the anatomy becomes theogeographical,” “astrology is applied to

–––––––––– * See Maspéro’s Guide to the Bulak Museum, among others. [H.P.B. most likely means the Guide du visiteur au Musée de Boulaq. Boulaq (Vienna pr.), 1883; 438 pp. 8-vo.––Comp.] ––––––––––

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physiology, or rather to the anatomy of the human body, and the human heart altogether.” The defunct’s “hair belongs to the Nile, his eyes to Venus [Isis], his ears to Macedo, the guardian of the tropics; his left temple to the Spirit dwelling in the sun, his nose to Anubis. . . . What a series of intolerable absurdities and ignoble prayers . . . . . to Osiris, imploring him to give the defunct in the other world, geese, eggs, pork, etc.” *

It might have been prudent, perhaps, to have waited to ascertain whether all these terms of “geese, eggs and pork” had not some other Occult meaning. The Indian Yogi who, in an exoteric work, is invited to drink a certain intoxicating liquor till he loses his senses, was also regarded as a drunkard representing his sect and class, until it was found that the Esoteric sense of that “spirit” was quite different; that it meant divine light, and stood for the ambrosia of Secret Wisdom. The symbols of the dove and the lamb which abound now in Eastern and Western Christian Churches may also be exhumed long ages hence, and speculated upon as objects of present-day worship. And then some “Occidentalist,” in the forthcoming ages of high Asiatic civilization and learning, may write karmically upon the same as follows: “The ignorant and superstitious Gnostics and Agnostics of the sects of ’Pope’ and ’Calvin’ (the two monster Gods of the Dynamite-Christian period) adored a pigeon and a sheep!” There will be portable hand-fetishes in all and every age for the satisfaction and reverence of the rabble, and the Gods of one race will always be degraded into devils by the next one. The cycles revolve within the depths of Lethe, and Karma shall reach Europe as it has Asia and her religions.

Nevertheless,

“This grand and dignified language [in the Book of the Dead], these pictures full of majesty, this orthodoxy of the whole evidently

–––––––––– * De Mirville (from whom much of the preceding is taken), op. cit., Vol. V, pp. 83-84, 85. ––––––––––

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proving a very precise doctrine concerning the immortality of the soul and its personal survival,”3

as shown by De Rougé and Abbé Van Drival, have charmed some Orientalists. The psychostasy (or judgment of the Soul) is certainly a whole poem to him who can read it correctly and interpret the images therein. In that picture we see Osiris, the horned, with his sceptre hooked at the end—the original of the pastoral bishop’s crook or crosier—the Soul hovering above, encouraged by Tmei, daughter of the Sun of Righteousness and Goddess of Mercy and Justice; Horus and Anubis, weighing the deeds of the soul. One of these papyri shows the Soul found guilty of gluttony sentenced to be re-born on earth as a hog; forthwith comes the learned conclusion of an Orientalist, “This is an indisputable proof of belief in metempsychosis, of transmigration into animals,” etc.

Perchance the Occult law of Karma might explain the sentence otherwise. It may, for all our Orientalists know, refer to the physiological vice in store for the Soul when re-incarnated—a vice that will lead that personality into a thousand and one scrapes and mis-adventures.

Tortures to begin with, then metempsychosis during 3,000 years as a hawk, an angel, a lotus-flower, a heron, a stork, a swallow, a serpent, and a crocodile: one sees that the consolation of such a progress was far from being satisfactory,

argues De Mirville, in his work on the Satanic character of the Gods of Egypt.* Again, a simple suggestion may throw on this a great light. Are the Orientalists quite sure that they have read correctly the “metempsychosis during 3,000 years”? The Occult Doctrine teaches that Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan (the Amenti of the Egyptians) for 3,000 years; that then the eternal Ego is reincarnated de novo, to be punished in its new temporary personality for sins committed in the preceding birth, and the suffering for which in one shape or another, will atone for past misdeeds. And the hawk, the lotus-flower, the heron, serpent, or bird––every object

–––––––––– * See De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 84. ––––––––––

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in Nature, in short—had its symbolical and manifold meaning in ancient religious emblems. The man who all his life acted hypocritically and passed for a good man, but had been in sober reality watching like a bird of prey his chance to pounce upon his fellow-creatures, and had deprived them of their property, will be sentenced by Karma to bear the punishment for hypocrisy and covetousness in a future life. What will it be? Since every human unit has ultimately to progress in its evolution, and since that “man” will be reborn at some future time as a good, sincere, well-meaning man, his sentence to be re-incarnated as a hawk may simply mean that he will then be regarded metaphorically as such. That, notwithstanding his real, good, intrinsic qualities, he will, perhaps during a long life, be unjustly and falsely charged with and suspected of greed and hypocrisy and of secret exactions, all of which will make him suffer more than he can bear. The law of retribution can never err, and yet how many such innocent victims of false appearance and human malice do we not meet in this world of incessant illusion, of mistake and deliberate wickedness. We see them every day, and they may be found within the personal experience of each of us. What Orientalist can say with any degree of assurance that he has understood the religions of old? The metaphorical language of the priests has never been more than superficially revealed, and the hieroglyphics have been very poorly mastered to this day.*

What says Isis Unveiled on this question of Egyptian rebirth and transmigration, and does it clash with anything that we say now? It will be observed that this philosophy of cycles, which was allegorized by the Egyptian Hierophants in the “circle of necessity,”

–––––––––– * One sees this difficulty arise even with a perfectly known language like Sanskrit, the meaning of which is far easier to comprehend than the hieratic writings of Egypt. Everyone knows how hopelessly the Sanskritists are often puzzled over the real meaning and how they fail in rendering the meaning correctly in their respective translations, in which one Orientalist contradicts the other. ––––––––––

COMMANDANT D. A. COURMES

French Naval Officer and loyal friend of the Founders in the early days of the Movement. Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 370.

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explains at the same time the allegory of the “Fall of man.” According to the Arabian descriptions, each of the seven chambers of the Pyramids––those grandest of all cosmic symbols—was known by the name of a planet. The peculiar architecture of the Pyramids shows in itself the drift of the metaphysical thought of their builders. The apex is lost in the clear blue sky of the land of the Pharaohs, and typifies the primordial point lost in the unseen universe from whence started the first race of the spiritual prototypes of man. Each mummy, from the moment that it was embalmed, lost its physical individuality in one sense; it symbolized the human race. Placed in such a way as was best calculated to aid the exit of the “soul,” the latter had to pass through the seven planetary chambers before it made its exit through the symbolical apex. Each chamber typified, at the same time, one of the seven spheres, and one of the seven higher types of physico-spiritual humanity alleged to be above our own. Every 3,000 years, the soul, representative of its race, had to return to its primal point of departure before it underwent another evolution into a more perfected spiritual and physical transformation. We must go deep indeed into the abstruse metaphysics of Oriental mysticism before we can realize fully the infinitude of the subjects that were embraced at one sweep by the majestic thought of its exponents.*

This is all Magic when once the details are given; and it relates at the same time to the evolution of our seven Root-Races, each with the characteristics of its special guardian or “God,” and his Planet. The astral body of each Initiate, after death, had to reënact in its funeral mystery the drama of the birth and death of each Race—the past and the future—and pass through the seven “planetary chambers,” which, as said above, typified also the seven spheres of our Chain.

The mystic doctrine of Eastern Occultism teaches that

“The Spiritual Ego [not the astral Khou] has to revisit, before it incarnates into a new body, the scenes it left at its last disincarnation. It has to see for itself and take cognizance of all the effects produced by the causes [the Nidânas] generated by its actions in a previous life; that, seeing, it should recognize the justice of the decree, and help the law of Retribution [Karma] instead of impeding it.”†

–––––––––– * Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, pp. 296-97. † Book II, Commentary. ––––––––––

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The translations by Vicomte de Rougé of several Egyptian papyri, imperfect as they may be, give us one advantage: they show undeniably the presence in them of white, divine Magic, as well as of Sorcery, and the practice of both throughout all the dynasties. The Book of the Dead, far older than Genesis * or any other book of the Old Testament, shows it in every line. It is full of incessant prayers and exorcisms against the Black Art. Therein Osiris is the conqueror of the “aerial demons.” The worshipper implores his help against Matat, “from whose eye proceeds the invisible arrow.” This “invisible arrow” that proceeds from the eye of the Sorcerer (whether living or dead) and that “circulates throughout the world,” is the evil eye—cosmic in its origin, terrestrial in its effects on the microcosmical plane. It is not the Latin Christians whom it behooves to view this as a superstition. Their Church indulges in the same belief, and has even a prayer against the “arrow circulating in darkness.”

The most interesting of all those documents, however, is the “Harris” papyrus, called in France “le papyrus magique de Chabas,” as it was first translated by the latter. It is a manuscript written in hieratic characters, translated, commented upon, and published in 1860 by Monsieur Chabas, but purchased at Thebes in 1855 by Mr. A. C. Harris. Its age is given at between twenty-eight and thirty centuries. We quote a few extracts from these translations:

Calendar of lucky and unlucky . . . . . days He who makes a bull work on the 20th of the month of Pharmuthi will surely die; he who on the 24th day of the same month pronounces the name of Seth aloud will see trouble reigning in his house from that day . . . . . he who on the 5th day of Patchons leaves his house falls sick and dies. [op. cit., pp. 156-57.] 4

–––––––––– * Bunsen and Champollion so declare, and Dr. Carpenter says that the Book of the Dead, sculptured on the oldest monuments, with “the very phrases we find in the New Testament in connection with the Day of Judgment . . . . . was engraved probably 2,000 years before the time of Christ.” (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 518.) –––––––––––

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Exclaims the translator, whose cultured instincts are revolted:

If one had not these words under our eyes, one could never believe in such servitude at the epoch of the Ramessides.*

We belong to the nineteenth century of the Christian era, and are therefore at the height of civilization, and under the benign sway and enlightening influence of the Christian Church, instead of being subject to the Pagan Gods of old. Nevertheless we personally know dozens, and have heard of hundreds, of educated, highly-intellectual persons who would as soon think of committing suicide as of starting on any business on a Friday, of dining at a table where thirteen sit down, or of beginning a long journey on a Monday. Napoleon the Great became pale when he saw three candles lit on a table. Moreover, we may gladly concur with De Mirville in this, at any rate, that such “superstitions” are “the outcome of observation and experience.” If the former had never agreed with facts, the authority of the Calendar, he thinks, would not have lasted for a week. But to resume:

Genethliacal influences: The child born on the 5th day of Paophi will be killed by a bull; on the 27th by a serpent. Born on the 4th of the month of Athyr, he will succumb to blows. [Pap. Magique, p. 158.]5

This is a question of horoscopic predictions; judiciary astrology is firmly believed in in our own page, and has been proven to be scientifically possible by Kepler.

Of the Khous two kinds were distinguished: first, the justified Khous, i.e., those who had been absolved from sin by Osiris when they were brought before his tribunal; these lived a second life. Secondly, there were the guilty Khous, “the Khous dead a second time”; these were the damned. Second death did not annihilate them, but they were doomed to wander about and to torture

–––––––––– * De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 88. Just such a calendar and horoscope interdictions exist in India in our day, as well as in China and all the Buddhist countries. ––––––––––

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people. Their existence had phases analogous to those of the living man, a bond so intimate between the dead and the living that one sees how the observation of religious funeral rites and exorcisms and prayers (or rather magic incantations) should have become necessary.* Says one prayer:

. . . . do not permit that the venom should master his limbs [of the defunct]; that he should be penetrated by any male dead, or any female dead, or that the shadow of any spirit should haunt him [or her] [Pap. magique, p. 164.] 6 Monsieur Chabas adds:

. . . . these Khous were beings of that kind to which human beings belong after their death. They were combated by the help of the divine power, the god Chons being famed for such deliverances. The Khou, in obeying the orders of the god, none the less preserved the precious faculty inherent in him of accommodating himself in any other body at will . . . . [op. cit., p. 168.] The Manes. . . . could enter the bodies of the living, haunt and obsess them. Formulae and talismans, and especially statues or divine figures, were used against such formidable invasions. [op. cit., pp. 168-69.] 7

The most frequent formula of exorcism is as follows It is very suggestive:

Men, gods, elect, dead spirits, amous, negroes, menti-u, do not look at the soul to show cruelty toward it. [Des Esprits, etc., Vol. III, p. 66.]

This is addressed to all who were acquainted with Magic.

“Amulets and mystic names.” This chapter is called “very mysterious,” and contains invocations to Penhakahakaherher and Uarauaakarsank-Robiti, and other such easy names. Says Chabas:

We have proofs that mystic names similar to these were in common use during the stay of the Israelites in Egypt. [op. cit., p. 162.] 8

And we may add that, whether got from the Egyptians or the Hebrews, these are sorcery names. The student can consult the works of Éliphas Lévi, such as his Grimoire

–––––––––– * See De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 65. ––––––––––

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des Sorciers. In these exorcisms Osiris is called Mamuram-Kahabu, and is implored to prevent the twice-dead Khou from attacking the justified Khou and his next of kin, since the accursed (astral spook)

Can take any form he likes and penetrate at will into any locality or body. [op. cit., p. 163.] 9

In studying Egyptian papyri, one begins to find that the subjects of the Pharaohs were not very much inclined to the Spiritism or Spiritualism of their day. They dreaded the “blessed spirit” of the dead more than a Roman Catholic dreads the devil!

But how uncalled-for and unjust is the charge against the Gods of Egypt that they are these “devils,” and against the priests of exercising their magic powers with the help of “the fallen angels,” may be seen in more than one papyrus. For one often finds in them records of Sorcerers sentenced to the death penalty, as though they had been living under the protection of the holy Christian Inquisition. Here is one case during the reign of Ramses III, quoted by De Mirville from Chabas.

The very beginning of the first page that has come down to us [Lee I] is mutilated. The second line begins with these words: “. . . . from the place where I am to the people of my country.” There is reason to suppose, as one will see, that the person who wrote this, in the first personal pronoun, is a magistrate making a report, and attesting it before men, after an accustomed formula . . . . “This Hai, a bad man, was an overseer [or perhaps keeper] of sheep; he said: ’Can I have a book that will give me great power!’ And a book was given him with the formulae of Ramses meri-Amen, the great god, his royal master. And he succeeded in getting a divine power enabling him to fascinate men. He also succeeded in building a place and in finding a very deep place, and produced men of Menh [magical homunculi?] and love-writings, stealing them from the Khen [the occult library of the palace] by the hand of the stonemason Atirma, by forcing one of the supervisors to go aside, and acting magically on the others . . . . . All the horrors and abominations he had conceived in his heart, he did them really, he practised them all, and other great crimes as well, such as are held in horror by all the gods and goddesses. Likewise let the prescriptions great [severe?] unto death be done unto him, such as the divine words order to be done to him.” The accusation does not stop there, it specifies the crimes. The first line speaks of a hand

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paralyzed by means of the men of Menh, to whom it is simply said, “Let such an effect be produced,” and it is produced. Then come the great abominations, such as deserve death . . .. The judges who had examined him [the culprit] reported saying, “Let him die according to the order of Pharaoh, and according to what is written in the lines of the divine language . . . .” [op. cit., pp. 169-73.] 10

Monsieur Chabas remarks:

Documents of this kind abound, but the task of analysing them all cannot be attempted with the limited means we possess.* [Pap. mag., p. 177.]

Then there is an inscription taken in the temple of Khons, the God who had power over the elementaries, at Thebes. It was presented by Monsieur Prisse d’Avenne to the Imperial—now National—Library of Paris, and was translated first by Mr. S. Birch. There is in it a whole romance of Magic. It dates from the day of Ramses XII † of the twentieth dynasty; it is from the rendering of Monsieur de Rougé, as quoted by De Mirville, that we now translate it.

This monument tells us that one of the Ramses of the twentieth dynasty, while collecting at Naharain the tributes payed to Egypt by the Asiatic nations, fell in love with a daughter of the chief of Bakhten, one of his tributaries, married her and, bringing her to Egypt with him, raised her to the dignity of Queen, under the royal name of Ranefrou. Soon afterwards the chief of Bakhten dispatched a messenger to Ramses, praying the assistance of Egyptian science for Bent-rosh, a young sister of the queen, attacked with illness in all her limbs.

The messenger asked expressly that a “wise-man” [an Initiate—Reh’ h’et] should be sent. The king gave orders that all the hierogrammatists of the palace and the guardians of the secret books

–––––––––– * Maimonides in his Treatise on Idolatry says, speaking of the Jewish teraphim: “They talked with men.”11 To this day Christian Sorcerers in Italy, and negro Voodoos at New Orleans fabricate small wax figures in the likeness of their victims, and transpierce them with needles, the wound, as on the teraphim or Menh, being repercussed on the living, often killing them. Mysterious deaths are still many, and not all are traced to the guilty hand. † The Ramses of Lepsius, who reigned some 1300 years before our era. ––––––––––

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of the Khen should be sent for, and choosing from among them the royal scribe Thoth-em-Hebi, an intelligent man, well versed in writing, charged him to examine the sickness.

Arrived at Bakhten, Thoth-em-Hebi found that Bent-rosh was possessed by a Khou (Em-she’eru ker h’ou), but declared himself too weak to engage in a struggle with him.*

Eleven years elapsed, and the young girl’s state did not improve. The chief of Bakhten again sent his messenger, and on his formal demand Khons-pe-iri-sekher-em-Zam, one of the divine forms of Chons—God the Son in the Theban Trinity—was dispatched to Bakhten . . .

The God [incarnate] having saluted (besa) the patient, she felt immediately relieved, and the Khou who was in her manifested forthwith his intention of obeying the orders of the God. “O great God, who forcest the phantom to vanish,” said the Khou, “I am thy slave and I will return whence I came!”† Evidently Khons-pe-iri-sekher-em-Zam was a real Hierophant of the class named the “Sons of God,” since he is said to be one of the forms of the God Khons; which means either that he was considered as an incarnation of that God—an Avatâra—or that he was a full Initiate. The same text shows that the temple to which he belonged was one of those to which a School of Magic was attached. There was a Khen in it, or that portion of the temple which was inaccessible to all but the highest priest, the library or depository of sacred works, to the study and care of which special priests were appointed (those whom all the Pharaohs consulted in cases of great importance), and wherein they communicated with the Gods and obtained advice from them. Does not Lucian tell his

–––––––––– * One may judge how trustworthy are the translations of such Egyptian documents when the sentence is rendered in three different ways by three Egyptologists. Rougé says: “He found her in a state to fall under the power of spirits,” or, “with her limbs quite stiff,” (?) another version; and Chabas translates: “And the Scribe found the Khou too wicked.” [Pap. Magique, p. 167, footnote 3.] Between her being in possession of an evil Khou and “with her limbs quite stiff,” there is a difference. † De Mirvllle, op. cit., Vol. V, pp. 247-248. [Pap. magique, pp. 167-168.] 12 ––––––––––

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readers in his description of the temple of Hierapolis, of “Gods who manifest their presence independently”? * And further on that he once travelled with a priest from Memphis, who told him he had passed twenty-three years in the subterranean crypts of his temple, receiving instructions on Magic from the Goddess Isis herself.13 Again we read that it was by Mercury himself that the great Sesostris (Ramses II) was instructed in the Sacred Sciences. On which Jablonski remarks that we have here the reason why Amun (Ammon)—whence he thinks our “Amen” is derived—was the real evocation to the light.†

In the Papyrus Anastasi,15 which teems with various formulae for the evocation of Gods, and with exorcisms against Khous and the elementary demons, the seventh paragraph shows plainly the difference made between the real Gods, the Planetary Angels, and those shells of mortals which are left behind in Kâma-loka, as though to tempt mankind and to puzzle it the more hopelessly in its vain search after the truth, outside the Occult Sciences and the veil of Initiation. This seventh verse says with regard to such divine evocation or theomantic consultations:

One must invoke that divine and great name‡ only in cases of absolute necessity, and when one feels absolutely pure and irreproachable.16 Not so in the formula of black Magic. Reuvens, speaking of the two rituals of Magic of the Anastasi collection, remarks that they

. . . undeniably form the most instructive commentary upon the Egyptian Mysteries attributed to Iamblichus, and the best pendant to that classical source, for understanding the thaumaturgy of the philosophical sects—non-christian, semi-christian, gnostic and independent—of the first centuries of our era, thaumaturgy based on ancient Egyptian mythology ......

–––––––––– * Some translators would have Lucian speak of the inhabitants of the city, but they fail to show that this view is maintainable. † De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 257.14 ‡ How can De Mirville see Satan in the Egyptian God of the great divine Name, when he himself admits that nothing was greater than ––––––––––

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According to Iamblichus, Theurgy was exercised by the ministry of secondary genii, , who, by nature, are the servants and executors of the decrees of the gods: , (De mysteriis, I, 20; II, 7.)* Reuvens closes with a remark which is very suggestive and is very important to the Occultists who defend the antiquity and genuineness of their documents, for he says:

All that he [Iamblichus] gives out as theology we find as history in our papyri.18

But then how deny the authenticity, the credibility, and, beyond all, the trustworthiness of those classical writers, who all wrote about Magic and its Mysteries in a most worshipful spirit of admiration and reverence? Listen to Pindarus, who exclaims:

Happy he who descends into the grave thus initiated, for he knows the end of his life and the kingdom † given by Jupiter.‡ –––––––––– the name of the oracle of Dodona, as it was that of the God of the Jews, IAO, or Jehovah? That oracle had been brought by the Pelasgians to Dodona more than fourteen centuries B.C. and left with the forefathers of the Hellenes, and its history is well-known and may be read in Herodotus. Jupiter, who loved the fair nymph of the ocean, Dodona, had ordered Pelasgus to carry his cult to Thessaly. The name of the God of that oracle at the temple of Dodona was Zeus Pelasgicos, the Zeuspater (God the Father), or as De Mirville explains: “It was the name par excellence, the name that the Jews held as the ineffable, the unpronounceable Name—in short, JAOH-PATER, i.e., ’he who was, who is, and who will be,’ otherwise the ETERNAL.” And the author admits that A. Maury is right “in discovering in the name of the Vaidic Indra the Biblical Jehovah,” and does not even attempt to deny the etymological connection between the two names—“the great and the lost name with the sun and the thunder-bolts.” Strange confessions, and still stranger contradictions. [The quotations in the above footnote are from de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, pp. 136-37. In quoting from Maury, he gives as reference his Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique, I, 56.— Compiler.] * Reuvens’ Letter to Letronne on the 75th number of the Papyri Anastasi. See De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 258.17 † The Elysian Fields. ‡ Fragments, ix.19 –––––––––––

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Or to Cicero:

Initiation not only teaches us to feel happy in this life, but also to die with better hope.*

Plato, Pausanias, Strabo, Diodorus and dozens of others bring their evidence as to the great boon of Initiation; all the great as well as the partially-initiated Adepts, share the enthusiasm of Cicero.

Does not Plutarch, thinking of what he had learned in his initiation, console himself for the loss of his wife ? Had he not obtained the certitude at the Mysteries of Bacchus that “the soul [spirit] remains incorruptible, and that there is a hereafter”?† . . . . Aristophanes went even farther: “All those who participated in the Mysteries,” he says, “led an innocent, calm, and holy life; they died looking for the light of the Elysian Fields [Devachan], while the rest could never expect anything but eternal darkness [ignorance?].‡ . . . . . And when one thinks about the importance attached by the States to the principle and the correct celebration of the Mysteries, to the stipulations made in their treaties for the security of their celebration, one sees to what degree those Mysteries had so long occupied their first and their last thought. It was the greatest among public as well as private preoccupations, and this is only natural, since according to Döllinger, “the Eleusinian Mysteries were viewed as the efflorescence of all the Greek religion, as the purest essence of all its conceptions.” § Not only conspirators were refused admittance therein, but those who had not denounced them; traitors, perjurers, debauchees || ...... so that Porphyry could say that: “Our soul has to be at the moment of death as it was during the Mysteries, i.e., exempt from passion, envy, hatred, or anger.”¶

Truly,

Magic was considered a Divine Science which led to a participation in the attributes of the Divinity itself.

–––––––––– * De Legibus, II, xiv, 36.20 † Consolatio ad Apollonium. [in Moral Essays.] ‡ Ranae.21 § Judaïsme et Paganisme, t.I, p. 184. || Fragm. of Styg., ap. Stob.22 ¶ De Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, p. 279. [No specific reference to Porphyry’s works given.—Comp.] ––––––––––

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Herodotus, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles, Orpheus, Pythagoras, all went, each in his day, in search of the wisdom of Egypt’s great Hierophants, in the hope of solving the problems of the universe.

Says Philo:

The Mysteries were known to unveil the operations of nature and lead to the contemplation of celestial powers.*

The prodigies accomplished by the priests of theurgical magic are so well authenticated, and the evidence—if human testimony is worth anything at all—is so overwhelming, that, rather than confess that the Pagan theurgists far outrivalled the Christians in miracles, Sir David Brewster piously concedes to the former the greatest proficiency in physics, and everything that pertains to natural philosophy. Science finds herself in a very disagreeable dilemma. . . .

“Magic,” says Psellus, “formed the last part of the sacerdotal science. It investigated the nature, power, and quality of everything sublunary; of the elements and their parts, of animals, of various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs. In short, it explored the essence and power of everything. From hence, therefore, it produced its effects. And it formed statues [magnetized] which procure health, and made all various figures and things [talismans] which could equally become the instruments of disease as well as of health. Often, too, celestial fire is made to appear through magic, and then statues laugh and lamps are spontaneously enkindled.†24 This assertion of Psellus that Magic “made statues which procure health,” is now proven to the world to be no dream, no vain boast of a hallucinated Theurgist. As Reuvens says, it becomes “history.” For it is found in the Papyrus Magique of Harris and on the votive stele just mentioned. Both Chabas and de Rougé state that:

On the eighteenth line of this very mutilated monument is found the formula with regard to the acquiescence of the God (Chons) who made his consent known by a motion he imparted to his statue.‡

There was even a dispute over it between the two Orientalists. While Monsieur de Rougé wanted to

–––––––––– * De Specialibus Legibus, quoted in Isis Unveiled, I, 25.23 † Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, 282-83. ‡ De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 248. ––––––––––

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translate the word “Han” by “favour” or “grace,” Monsieur Chabas insisted that “Han” meant a “movement” or “a sign” made by the statue.

Excesses of power, abuse of knowledge and personal ambition very often led selfish and unscrupulous Initiates to black Magic, just as the same causes led to precisely the same thing among Christian popes and cardinals; and it was black Magic that led finally to the abolition of the Mysteries, and not Christianity, as is often erroneously thought. Read Mommsen’s Roman History, Vol. I, and you will find that it was the Pagans themselves who put an end to the desecration of the Divine Science. As early as 560 B.C. the Romans had discovered an Occult association, a school of black Magic of the most revolting kind; it celebrated mysteries brought from Etruria, and very soon the moral pestilence had spread all over Italy.

More than seven thousand Initiates were prosecuted, and most of them were sentenced to death. . . .

Later on, Titus-Livius shows us another three thousand Initiates sentenced during a single year for the crime of poisoning.* And yet black Magic is derided and denied! Pauthier may or may not be too enthusiastic in saying that India appears to him as

. . . . the grand and primitive hearth of human thought . . . . that has ended by embracing the whole ancient world. . . . .

but he was right in his idea. That primitive thought led to Occult knowledge, which in our Fifth Race is reflected from the earliest days of the Egyptian Pharaohs down to our modern times. Hardly a hieratic papyrus is exhumed with the tightly swathed-up mummies of kings and high priests that does not contain some interesting information for the modern students of Occultism.

All that is, of course, derided Magic, the outcome of primitive knowledge and of revelation, though it was

–––––––––– * De Mirville, op.cit., Vol. V, pp. 280-81.25 ––––––––––

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practised in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so-called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes. In the letter no one in our century will believe the statements, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, and these will give the acts a satanic origin. Nevertheless, Magic is so mixed up with the history of the world, that if the latter is ever to be written it has to rely upon the discoveries of Archaeology, Egyptology, and hieratic writings and inscriptions; if it insists that they must be free from that “superstition of the ages” it will never see the light. One can well imagine the embarrassing position in which serious Egyptologists, Assyriologists, savants and academicians find themselves. Forced to translate and interpret the old papyri and the archaic inscriptions on stelae and Babylonian cylinders, they find themselves compelled from first to last to face the distasteful, and to them repulsive, subject of Magic, with its incantations and paraphernalia. Here they find sober and grave narratives from the pens of learned scribes, made up under the direct supervision of Chaldaean or Egyptian Hierophants, the most learned among the Philosophers of antiquity. These statements were written at the solemn hour of the death and burial of Pharaohs, High Priests, and other mighty ones of the land of Chemi; their purpose was the introduction of the newly-born, Osirified SouI before the awful tribunal of the “Great Judge” in the region of Amenti—there where a lie was said to outweigh the greatest crimes. Were the Scribes and Hierophants, Pharaohs, and King-Priests all fools or frauds to have either believed in, or tried to make others believe in, such “cock-and-bull stories” as are found in the most respectable papyri? Yet there is no help for it. Corroborated by Plato and Herodotus, by Manetho and Syncellus, as by all the greatest and most trustworthy authors and philosophers who wrote upon the subject, those papyri note down—as seriously as they note any history, or any fact so well known and accepted as to need no

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commentary—whole royal dynasties of Manes, to wit, of shadows and phantoms (astral bodies), and such feats of magic skill and such Occult phenomena, that the most credulous Occultist of our own times would hesitate to believe them to be true.

The Orientalists have found a plank of salvation, while yet publishing and delivering the papyri to the criticism of literary Sadducees: they generally call them “romances of the days of Pharaoh So-and-So.” The idea is ingenious, if not absolutely fair. ––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1897

COMPILER’S NOTES

[These notes correspond to the respective superior numbers in the text of “Egyptian Magic”.]

1 While at Thebes in February, 1855, A. C. Harris bought several remarkable papyri from some Arabs who claimed to have found them all together in the same secret hiding place. One of them is a magnificent MS. which became known as the “Records of Ramses III”; another is a collection of several historical accounts from the reign of Ramses Neferka-Ra of the Twentieth Dynasty; a third is the Papyrus on Magic which H.P.B. speaks of. It consists of only nine pages containing 104 lines, to which are added 24 lines written on the reverse side. François Chabas published a work concerned with this papyrus, in which is given a facsimile of it together with complete translation and commentary on its meaning. The work is entitled Le Papyrus Magique Harris. Traduction analytique et commentée d’un manuscrit égyptien, comprenant le texte hiératique publié pour la première fois, un tableau phonétique et un glossaire. Chalon-sur-Saône: imprimerie de J. Dejussieu, 1860. vi, 250 pp., plates.

2 The original French text of this passage is as follows:

«La magie de nos jours.—Sans recourir aux cérémonies imposantes de la bague d’Hermès, ni aux obscures formules d’un mysticisme insondable, un magnétiseur de nos jours, au moyen de quelques gestes, bouleverse les facultés organiques, inculque la connaissance des langues étrangères, transporte dans les pays éloignés, dans les lieux secrets, fait deviner les pensées des absents, lire les lettres scellées, etc. L’antre des sybilles modernes est une simple chambre et le trépied de la pythonisse a fait place à un guéridon, à un chapeau, à une assiette, au meuble le plus vulgaire; mais, bien supérieur à l’oracle

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de l’antiquité qui se contentait de parler, l’oracle d’aujourd’hui va jusqu’à écrire ses réponses. À l’ordre d’un Médium, les esprits des morts viennent faire craquer les meubles, et les auteurs des siècles passés livrent leurs œuvres d’outre-tombe! La crédulité humaine n’a pas aujourd’hui des bornes plus étroites qu’à l’aube des temps historiques, et il n’en sera pas autrement aussi longtemps que les hommes seront soumis aux mêmes infirmités et animés par les mêmes désirs, aussi longtemps que le cœur humain éprouvera l’influence de cet instinct qui nous porte à convoiter ardemment la richesse et la considération. Tel était le vœu de ce contemporain de Moise, dont les papyrus nous ont conté l’histoire: ’Ne pourrais-je trouver un moyen immédiat, irrésistible, pour devenir puissant et redouté?’

«De même que la tératologie est une partie essentielle de la physiologie générale, de même aussi les prétendues sciences occultes occupent dans les annales de l’humanité une place qui n’est pas sans importance et méritent à plus d’un titre l’attention du philosophe et de l’historien.» (pp. 186-87.)

3 Quoted by de Mirville, either from de Rougé or the abbé Van Drival, in his Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, p. 85. No definite source given.

4 The original French text for these somewhat paraphrased sentences is as follows:

«Calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes .. . . Le 20, on ne devait faire aucune espèce de travail. Celui qui aurait fait travailler un taureau mourait; le 24, interdiction de prononcer à haute voix le nom de Set. Celui qui l’avait prononcé pendant la journée, voyait le trouble dans sa maison à tout jamais. . . . Au 5 de Pachons, défense de sortir de la maison, sous peine de tomber malade et de mourir.» (pp. 156-57.)

Quoted by de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, p. 88.

5 These abbreviated sentences are taken from a paragraph the French original of which is as follows:

«Influences généthliaques.—Indépendamment des observances dont ils avaient amené l’usage, les anniversaires mythologiques frappaient d’une marque heureuse ou fatale l’heure de la naissance; par exemple, l’enfant né le 21 de Thoth devait mourir dans la faveur . . . si c’était le 5 de Paophi, il serait tué par un taureau; le 27, par un serpent. Né le 4 d’Athyr, il périrait sous les coups . . . . .» (p. 158.) Quoted by be Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 88. 6 The complete text of this incantation, as given by Chabas, is as follows: «‘O brebis, fils de brebis; agneau, fils de brebis, qui te nourris du lait de la même brebis, ne permets pas que le défunt soit mordu par aucun serpent mâle ou femelle, par aucun scorpion, par aucun reptile; ne permets pas que le venin maîtrise ses membres; qu’il

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ne soit pénétré par aucun mort, par aucune morte! que l’ombre d’aucun esprit ne le hante! que la bouche du serpent Am-kahou-ew n’ait pas de pouvoir sur lui! lui, il est la brebis . . . .’» (pp. 163-64.)

Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 65.

7 The French original of these sentences is as follows:

«Faits acquis.—Nous apprenons par cette singulière histoire que, pour les Égyptiens, les esprits possesseurs étaient des Khous, c’est-à-dire des êtres de l’espèce à laquelle appartenaient les humains après la mort. On les combattait à l’aide de la puissance divine; le dieu Chons jouissait surtout d’un grand crédit pour ces sortes de délivrances. Toutefois le Khou, en obéissant aux injonctions du dieu, n’en conservait pas moins la précieuse faculté inhérente à sa nature d’occuper tout autre corps à son gré ......

«Les mânes, de leur côté, avaient le pouvoir de se manifester aux vivants le plus souvent, comme les revenants des époques plus modernes, d’une manière fâcheuse ou nuisible. Ainsi ils pouvaient entrer dans le corps des vivants, ou les hanter, les obséder. Contre ces redoutables invasions on employait, de même que dans le premier cas, des formules et des talismans, et en particulier les statues ou figures divines.» (pp. 168-69.)

Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 66.

8 Chabas speaks in this connection of chapter 162 of the funeral Ritual, not of the Papyrus magique. He says:

«Nous avons du reste la preuve que des noms mystiques, assimilables à ceux des chapitres en question, étaient d’un usage vulgaire à l’époque du séjour des Hébreux en Égypte.» (p. 162.) Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 89.

9 The original French text of this entire passage seems to convey a different meaning, in that the defunct is spoken of rather than the “astral spook.” It is as follows:

«Osiris, siégeant sur son tribunal funéraire, y est invoqué sous le nom trois fois répété de Mamuram-Kahabu, et l’objet du chapitre est, comme c’est le cas pour la plupart de ceux du Rituel, d’obtenir que le défunt prenne toutes les formes qui lui plaisent et pénètre à son gré en tous lieux.» (p. 163.)

Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 89, where the same meaning is conveyed as in the original text of Chabas.

10 This passage is taken from what is known as the Papyrus Rollin, the third page of which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (C. 1188), while two earlier pages are in the collection of Dr. Lee at Hartwell (vide Sharpe, Egypt. Inscr., 2nd Ser., pl. 87 and 88). F. Chabas gives in his work a transcription of the existing three pages in hieroglyphic characters. The French text of the passage, as

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quoted by H.P.B., together with Chabas’ footnotes to some of the terms, is as follows: «De la première page qui nous reste [Lee I], le commencement est mutilé. La seconde ligne débute par les mots ’. . . . tous du lieu où je suis, et aux hommes du pays.’ On verra qu’il y a des motifs sérieux de supposer que le personnage qui parle ici à la première personne est un magistrat faisant un rapport et l’attestant devant les hommes d’après une formule en usage. La suite est en effet un rapport dont je vais donner la traduction: «‘Ce Hai, homme mauvais, étant intendant de troupeaux; il avait dit: puissé-je avoir un livre qui me donne une puissance redoutable!* «‘Et il lui fut donné un livre de formules† de Ramsès Meri-Amen, le dieu grand, son royal maître. Et il lui arriva de procurer par pouvoir divin ‡ des fascinations § aux hommes. Il réussit à se procurer d’une part une officine,|| de l’autre, un endroit très profond. Et il lui arriva de faire des hommes de MENH,¶ des écrits

–––––––––– * NRUI S’AFIU. J’ai discuté le dernier mot à la page 64. Le premier possède une signification analogue. Il exprime la terreur, la vénération, le respect mêlé de crainte qu’inspirent les dieux, les rois et même les puissants de la terre. Les deux expressions sont fréquemment en parallélisme. Voyez Champollion, Mon. XXXVIII, 21; CXXXI; CCXVII; Sharpe, Egypt. Inscr., pl. 117, 5. Déterminé par le signe de l’espèce humaine, NRU ne signifie pas les hommes, comme je l’avais cru, mais les terribles, les redoutables, les grands qui commandent la crainte et le respect. † Litt. livres de formules piour l’action. Ce sont les moyens d’opérer, les recettes. ‡ NETER-PAHU. [the second word] veut dire atteindre, joindre, comme verbe de mouvement. Au sens abstrait ce mot signifie réussir à, venir à bout. Il est combiné avec [the first word] DIEU, comme dans l’expression NETER S’ES, servir Dieu, ou suivre Dieu. § SIH. Déterminé par l’hiéroglyphe du mal et par celui de la vision, ce mot dont je ne connais pas d’autre exemple, est ici traduit conjecturalement. || Une maison de. Ce groupe semble désigner l’atelier, le lieu de travail, ou peut-être les objets qui garnissent un lieu de cette espèce ¶ Des hommes de Menh. Plus loin nous trouverons des dieux de Menh-u. Ce sont peut-être des figures préparées en vue des opérations magiques. Un dieu de Menh est cité au Rituel comme saisissant les morts pour les conduire au supplice et se repaissant de leur chair (Todth., ch. 7, lig. 1). Évidemment la hommes et les dieux de Menh devaient remplir un rôle funeste. 9 ––––––––––

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d’amour,* les ayant fait voler dans le Khen par la main du tailleur de pierres Atirma . . . ., en forcant à s’éloigner l’un des agents, agissant magiquement† sur les autres, volant quelques formules dans le Khen et d’autres au dehors. «‘Puis il s’ingénia sur elles et il trouva le véritable moyen pour toutes les horreurs et toutes les méchancetés dont son cœur avait conçu la pensée; et il les pratiqua réellement; et il les fit toutes ainsi que d’autres grands crimes, l’horreur de tout dieu et de toute déesse. De même, qu’il lui soit fait les prescriptions grandes jusqu’à la mort, que les paroles divines disent devoir lui être faites.’ «La page et le rapport finissent ici. On a relaté les faits et déclaré qu’ils tombaient sous l’application de la loi, qui les qualifie de crimes dignes de mort, et l’on conclut que la loi doit être appliquée au coupable.» From this point down, H.P.B.’s or de Mirville’s quoting from Chabas is more or less of a paraphrase. The original French text has the following sentences: «. . . la première ligne [of the second mutilated page of the papyrus] parle d’une main paralysée . . . . . «‘Il lui est arrivé de faire des écrits magiques . . . . de faire quelques dieux de Menh ...... et d’autres grands crimes, en disant: qu’ils se produisert, et en les faisant se produire . . . .’ «‘. . . . les magistrats qui l’ont examiné ont fait leur rapport, en disant: qu’il meurt lui-même (par l’ordre) du Pharaon, selon ce qui est dans les livres de la langue divine qui disent: que cela lui soit fait.’ ” In the rare work of F. Chabas, Le Papyrus magique Harris, this material with its accompanying Plate occupies pp. 169-73. In de Mirville, op. cit., it can be found in Vol. V, pp. 89-90. 11 De Mirville refers to this in Des Esprits, etc., Vol. V, p. 96, and gives the Latin equivalent as: et loquebantur cum hominibus. No definite reference to any portion of the Treatise on Idolatry is given, however. 12 In the work of F. Chabas, the account is as follows, and is apparently the original from which de Rougé and de Mirville have both quoted: –––––––––– * SH’AI-U EN MERU. Les charmes et les filtres pour provoquer l’amour ont de tout temps constitué une branche importante de l’art des sorciers. † HAKA-U . . . . Nous avons expliqué que ce mot exprime la vertu, le pouvoir, l’efficacité. C’est la puissance d’opérer des effets par la simple volonté, sans effort physique, selon les prétentions de La magie . . . . ––––––––––

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«Ce monument rapporte que l’un des Ramsés de la XXme dynastie, percevant en Naharain* les tributs payés à l’Égypte par les nations asiatiques, s’éprit de la fille du chef de Bakhten, l’un de ses tributaires, l’épousa et la ramena en Égypte où il l’éleva à la dignité de reine, sous le nom royal de Ranefrou. «Quelque temps après, le chef de Bakhten dépêcha à Ramsès un messager ayant mission de réclamer l’assistance de la science égyptienne en faveur de Bent-rosh, jeune sœur de la reine Ranefrou, atteinte d’un mal qui s’étendait dans tous ses membres.

«Le messager avait expressément demandé l’envoi d’un savant [REH’ H’ET], et le roi faisant appeler les hiéro-grammates du palais [TAI], et les gardiens des livres secrets du Khen, désigna parmi eux le scribe royal Thoth-em-Hébi, homme d’intelligence, très-versé dans l’écriture, et le chargea d’aller examiner la malade. «Arrivé à Bakhten, Thoth-em-Hébi constata que Bent-Rosh était en état de possession par un Khou [EM SEH’ERU KER H’OU], mais il se trouva trop faible pour se hasarder à entreprendre la lutte. «Onze années s’écoulent et l’état de la jeune fille ne s’était pas amélioré. Le chef de Bakhten renvoya alors son messager, et, sur sa demande formelle, Khons-pe-iri-sekher-em-Zam, l’une des formes de Chons, dieu fils dans la triade thébaine, fut dépêché à Bakhten, où il arriva après un voyage de dix-sept mois.

«Le dieu ayant fait l’acte du salut [BESA] à la malade, celle-ci se trouva subitement soulagée, et le Khou qui était en elle manifesta aussitôt son intention d’obéir à la sommation du Dieu. Une fête religieuse est convenue, et, selon sa promesse, pendant la cérémonie le Khou se retira où bon lui sembla, sur l’ordre de Khons-pe-iri-sekher-em-Zam.» (pp. 167-68.) 13 Lucian’s passage regarding Hierapolis is from his De dea Syria (Peri tês Suriês Theou), 10. The original Greek of this sentence is as follows: . . . . . The passage concerning the priest from Memphis can be found in Lucian’s Philopseudês ê Apistôn (Lover of Lies, or the Doubter), 34, where he is spoken of as one of the sacred scribes of Memphis, well versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, etc. 14 The reference to Jablonski, as given by de Mirville, is to his Panth., 1. II, p. 182. 15 De Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 257, says it is the 75th number of one of the Anastasi papyri. –––––––––– * La Mésopotamie. ––––––––––

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16 The complete text of this passage, as quoted in French by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 258, is as follows: «II ne faut invoquer ce grand nom, que dans une absolue nécessité et lorsqu’on a rien à se reprocher. Après quelques formules magiques, il entrera un Dieu à tête de serpent qui donnera les réponses.» 17 What is meant here is the following work: Lettre à M. Letronne. . . . . sur les papyrus bilingues et grecs, et quelques autres monuments gréco-égyptiens du musée d’antiquités de l’Université de Leide, par C.J.C. Reuvens . . . . Leide: S. et J. Luchtmans, 1830. 3 parties en 1 vol. 4-to. Atlas. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Library of Congress; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penna., U.S.A.) 18 This sentence could not be located in Reuvens’ work. It may be a paraphrase of his general trend of ideas. 19 This reference, as given, is to be found in de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 278. It is somewhat misleading, however. Pindarus’ passage occurs in his Dirges ( ), 137 (102). Donaldson’s arrangement of the fragment is as follows:

Sir John Sandys’ translation of it runs thus: “Blessed is he who hath seen these things before he goeth beneath the hollow earth; for he understandeth the end of mortal life, and the beginning (of a new life) given of God.” It has been attributed to a Dirge in memory of an Athenian who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. 20 The Latin original of the entire sentence, of which this is a part, is as follows: “. . . nam mihi cum multa eximia divinaque videntur Athenae tuae peperisse atque in vitam hominum attulisse, tum nihil melius illis mysteriis, quibus ex agresti immanique vita exculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sumus, initiaque ut appellantur, ita re vera principia vitae cognovimus; neque solum cum laetitia vivendi rationem accepimus, sed etiam cum spe meliore moriendi . . .” This is translated by Clinton Walker Keyes (Loeb Classical Library. London: Wm. Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928, p. 415) in the following manner: “. . . For among the many excellent and indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life, none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by their means we have been brought out of our barbarous

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and savage mode of life and educated and refined to a state of civilization; and as the rites are called ‘initiations,’ so in very truth we have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a better hope . . . .” 21This is hardly Aristophanes himself. The text of The Frogs contains no such passage. However, in the Introduction to the translation of The Frogs (in The Comedies of Aristophanes. Ed., transl. and Expl. by Benjamin Bickley Rogers. 6 vols. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1919. 2nd ed.), pp. xiv-xv, occurs the general idea expressed in the first part of this alleged passage; the closing part of it has remained untraced. 22 This may refer to Johannes Stobaeus’ Florilegium, in which Porphyry is quoted in connection with Stygios. In the ed. of Augustus Meineke, Lipsiae: B. G. Teubneri, 1855, these passages are in Vol. III, p. 248, and Vol. IV, p. 26. 23 The only passage somewhat resembling this general idea seems to be the one in Book I, 269, of Philo Judaeus’ De specialibus legibus, and is as follows: “The mind is cleansed by wisdom and the truths of wisdom’s teaching which guide its steps to the contemplation of the universe and all that is therein, and by the sacred company of the other virtues and by the practice of them shown in noble and highly praiseworthy actions.” 24 This passage is from a short essay of Michael Psellus entitled Peri Daimonôn (De Daemonibus or Concerning Daimons according to the opinions of the Greeks), section 5 thereof. The Latin text (Vide Migne, Patrologiœ Cursus Completus. Ser. Gr., Vol. 122, col. 879. Paris, 1889) is as follows: “Magna autem Graecis videbatur multam vim habere. Eam ultimam medicinalis scientiae partem esse dicunt. Investigans enim omnium sublunarium substantiarum et naturam et qualitatem, elementorum nempe eorumque partium, animalium quorumlibet, plantarum eorumque fructuum, lapidum, herbarum, et una verbo omnium rerum substantiam et potentiam, inde sua operatur. Oblectamenta proponit sanitatem efficientia, speciesque diversissimas producit, et alia medicamenta morbum efficientia. Aquilae et dracones efficax illis erant ad sanitatem sumptis; feles autem et canes et corri vigiliae symbola. Cera vero et lutum in membrorum confictionem adhibibantur. Apparere etiam facit ignis coelestis editionem. Et sponte subrident statuae et subito igne totam pades acceduntur. Complectitur quoque totam astronomiam et multa per eam et potest et perficit.” In Isis Unveiled, I, 282-83, H.P.B. refers the student to Thomas Taylor’s The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries (3rd ed., New York:

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J. W. Bouton, 1875), where other passages from this small essay of Psellus can be found in the Appendix, pp. 159-65. 25 The statement concerning the “seven thousand Initiates” has reference to Livy’s History, Book XXXIX, xvii, 6, where, however, the author merely speaks of the fact that “in the conspiracy, it was said, more than seven thousand men and women were involved.” This refers to the wide-spread corruption resulting from a black magical form of Bacchanalia which had been imported from Etruria by a nameless Greek and which was undermining the morals of the people. Roman administrators put an end to it by drastic means. It is obvious from Livy’s own text that the term “initiate” cannot mean in this respect anything else but those who had joined this cult and took part in its orgies. This took place about 186 B.C. The second statement, concerning poisoning, has not been traced to its source.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1924 and 1931

ORIGINAL PROGRAMME OF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 135

[THE ORIGINAL PROGRAMME OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY]

COMPILER’S NOTES

[There exists in the Archives of The Theosophical Society, at Adyar, India, a twenty-four page manuscript in H.P.B.’s handwriting, signed and dated by her at Ostende, October 3, 1886. It contains a most important pronouncement regarding the aims and objectives of The Theosophical Society, and the platform upon which it was founded. It also embodies an outspoken defence of Col. Henry S. Olcott, the President-Founder. The first page of the MS., containing, however, but a few lines of text (up to the middle of the second numbered item, at the word “races”), is missing. The missing lines have been restored from a typed copy at Adyar of an incomplete rendering of this pronouncement. Owing to the loss of the first page of the MS., the original title of it, if any, remains unknown. The present title is strongly suggested by the last paragraph of the text, and was adopted by C. Jinarâjadâsa, when he published this MS. for the second time in the pages of The Theosophist (Vol. LII, No. 11, August, 1931, pp. 561-589), where it had been originally published some years earlier (Vol. XLV, June, July, August and September, 1924). H.P.B.’s MS. represents her Reply to a Statement issued jointly by Arthur Gebhard and Mohini Mohun Chatterji under the title of “A Few Words on The Theosophical Organization,” and bearing the date of September 23, 1886. It embodied a rather harsh criticism of the Society and its President-Founder, Col. Henry S. Olcott. This joint Statement, in Mohini’s handwriting, exists also in the Adyar Archives. On the back of it, Col. Olcott has written: “Manifesto of Mohini and Arthur Gebhard about my despotism. H.P.B.’s cutting reply. 1886.” The sad circumstances underlying what H.P.B. called the Gebhard-Mohini “Manifesto,” and her own Reply, are perhaps nowhere expressed more graphically than in the two letters which follow: one to William Quan Judge, written on the very date when she signed her Reply, and the other to The Sinnetts, written but a few days later. LETTER FROM H.P.B. TO WILLIAM QUAN JUDGE The original of this letter was held in the official archives of the Theosophical Society with Headquarters at Point Loma, California. It was originally published in The Theosophical Forum, New Series, Vol. III, No. 12, August 15, 1932, pp. 251-53, certain capital letters being substituted, however, for some of the proper names occurring

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in the text. The following is a verbatim et literatim reproduction of the original, including peculiarities of H.P.B.’s punctuation and style. Ostende Rue d’Ouest 17. October 3 1886

My dear W.Q.J. –––Yours received––– Bouton is an old Shylock—& would skin his own mother. I cannot lose over 500$. I make him an offer of 400$ in three months installments—100$ each—or 300$ down. The secret is—does he care to have the Secret Doctrine or not—& whether he still wants to have Isis illustrated as he proposed to me in a letter. If he does—he will come down. If not, then there is little chance. But I feel sure you could manage it. You know that the copyright of Isis is mine—unless he has swindled me in this too. You ought to ascertain it. And if the copyright in Washington is in my name—then I suppose you could prevent him to sell even the remainder of the edition I do not know the laws & you do. But do try to come to some arrangement with him. If he gives me the 400 by installment—then I want you to have a $100 out of it—25$ each time; & if he gives only 350 down at once then let him send me a cheque for 275$—& give you another for $75. I don’t want you to take trouble & bother yourself for me for the Prussian King. But do try to settle something definite with the old devil, so as to close accounts for ever in the matter of Isis hitherto printed. And tell me whether you can copyright for me the S.D. and what I have to do for it. Take to him my letter & try to mesmerize him & wig on the right side. I tell you seriously the publisher who will have the S.D. will make lots even if I myself do little. But I must fence and guarantee myself, securely in this matter of copyrighting. And now to other things & far more serious. Arthur is with you now & you will find Arthur changed. One solitary month with Mohini has altered him so, that he is no more the same man. And the fruit of all this is—a manifesto written by Mohini & signed by both himself & Arthur. Anything more ungrateful, cold, unjust to poor Olcott and cruel I have never read Nor did I ever expect such a thing from Mohini, who, if he is now regarded as a Jesus on wheels & a Saint owes to Olcott’s advertisements of him & my enthusiastic claims for him. Now Mr. Mohini Babu (he passed 2 weeks with me) is cold, dignified & reserved with me, friendly and “patronizing” —but still never showing his little game right before my nose, but only behind my back. I will give you an example which will show his present drift. Poor old Dr Bergen who is as devoted as devotion itself to the Master’s (ideal I call it with all those who

ORIGINAL PROGRAMME OF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 137

do not know Them personally)—& who went on purpose to London to hear of, & about Them, and went to see the Arundales, heard to his amazement that the Masters were no longer regarded as the living actual Adepts, but either white Magicians with grayish tints, or “fictions” or something he could not make out. The Mahatmas he was told were unreachable Beings they could neither communicate, nor take concern in worldly or private affairs could never write letters or send messages—therefore our Masters could never be MAHATMAS. You see what the consequences of all this have to be don’t you? Then when Bergen protested & said that he, at any rate, would never give up the living Masters; would always remain devoted to Them etc. Miss Arundale arose & looking him straight in the face, said: “I thought once as you do; it took me six months to come to Mohini’s views; BUT NOW I THINK AS HE DOES.” Plain this: Mohini is then exercising for over six months his influence over Miss Arundale to make her lose faith & belief even in the Masters. To me Mohini never said it so openly; but so many points more for him in wiliness & cunning. To me he said he was not of Bowaji’s way of thinking; that he blamed him etc. and his policy seems to be identical. Both are determined, I see, to gradually destroy the Society. They are undermining it slowly but surely; hence the “Manifesto,” the sense of which is “Society useless; Brotherhood a flapdoodle; President—a vain, worldly, conceited, untheosophical & unbrotherly & pernicious fool. Down then, with President, Head-Quarters, Society & all.” You will see it, because I answered it, & Sinnett will answer it too and we are going to print it to distribute among Fellows. Such was Mohini’s influence on Arthur that he who was all devotion when he arrived, now said to Sinnett in going away, “What matters it, so long you do good that you work within or outside the T.S. Why should there be any connection with it for us theosophists. Now keep this letter private and confidential don’t say anything to him but watch & see. But then I should not wonder in these days of Libra, Dugpas & universal reckoning if even you found yourself influenced by Arthur, Mohini and Co—Well, when I lose YOU—then will I say—Goodbye Society—“Gone to join her grandmother” Your friend of the “Libra” is right in many ways; but of this later on. Ah, my poor dear Judge, do not be wiled away, for pity sake. Things will change & then everyone will be rewarded or—DAMNED. See if it don’t. Olcott is a conceited ass, but there is no one more faithful & true than he is to the Masters & the original ideal & no one is more devoted to the Society planned & established under Their Orders—than he is. I must, & will defend him publicly, & admit his shortcomings as sincerely in print I tell you we are on the eve of a crisis brought by Mohini and Bowaji

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and he who will remain true will be saved while all others will go to the Devil. The trouble with you is that you do not know the great change that came to pass in you a few years ago. Others have occasionally their astrals changed and replaced by those of Adepts (as of Elementaries) & they influence the outer, & the higher man. With you, it is the NIRMANAKAYA not the “astral” that blended with your astral. Hence the dual nature & fighting. Fakir? Fakir be damned. The man knows not the difference between a Nirmanakaya of an Adept & his astral. Do write to me, for mercy sake, I am sending you on the Reincarnation as you asked, extracts from the S.D. & a full answer, I believe. Your ever truly & faithfully (who? !) well, your friend anyhow HPB I am not coming just now to the U.S. who is the humbug who invented it? –––––––––––

LETTER FROM H. P. B. TO MR. AND MRS. A. P. SINNETT Originally published in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, New York, 1924, pp. 223-24. Oct. 6, 1886. My Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett, I forward Mohini’s Manifesto which you please read carefully, if you have not before. I trust it to your care for a few days begging you to send it back to me intact, as I have to send it to Olcott and Council. It cannot and will not remain unnoticed. He addresses it “to all theosophists interested in the progress of true theosophy” and it will be circulated all over America whether printed or not. It cannot be left unanswered. If you have changed your mind and will not answer it—as you wanted to—then I must send it to Adyar where it will be made use of, and my Reply the same. So as your idea of recasting it is good and you may read it in a new form to your Society or do with it whatever you like—I must beg you to send it me (my MSS) intact also, and as it is; for I have neither time nor desire to copy it and am ordered to forward both the Manifesto and my Reply to Adyar and thence to America. Of course you can do as you like. Only there are two ways left open before us, now, that Mohini has pronounced himself: either an amicable separation into groups, each according to its harmonious spirit, or—a thundering separation and a collapse

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of the “L.L. of T.S.” The first may be effected by you, and quietly after you have talked it over with Mohini and Miss A.; the other will burst upon you as a thunder-clap, for they are preparing for it. The minds of our best members are poisoned by insinuations and metaphysical and cosmistical assumptions. Even Bm. Keightley has sailed off on the Yogi line. Neither Astrology nor Mesmerism will save it. What those fanatics want is the dark spirit of fanaticism, engrossed in which, they have lost sight of the fact that Mohini has quietly withdrawn from under their noses their living Teachers and ideals and substituted for them himself—instead. I do not care for it personally. The days of heart-aching, and struggle and fight are over for me personally. I have done my duty, as ordered, and prefer remaining with Mohini on diplomatic friendly terms (an armed peace like the rest of Europe), than in open war. Much of what he says is true, that [but?] unless people are MADE to see the revers de la médaille of his “Saintship”—and his black ingratitude and cold-heartedness to Olcott and all—the L.L. will be lost in a fog of Maya created by the young gentleman. He has psychologised them all and all see as he wants them to. You remain indifferent? Very well; so am I. Mrs. K. and Maitland both tell me that the only means of saving the L.L. is to break it into groups or— best of all for me to come to London and proclaim myself President of a group of Occultists!! They take me for a Battenberg, or a Stambuloff of Bulgaria—verily. Well, it remains for me to wash my hands of the whole matter and ask you again to send me back both MSS—whether you recast mine or not. L’un n’empêche pas l’autre. Do so, and send it me to read and see. My love to Mrs. S. Yours theosophically, H. P. B. ––––––––––

It would seem that A. P. Sinnett may have kept both Documents for several weeks, before returning them to H.P.B. at Ostende. This is evidenced by an undated letter which H.P.B. wrote Col. H. S. Olcott sometime in the latter part of December, 1886 (published in The Theosophist, August, 1931, pp. 684-85), just prior to a business trip which Countess Constance Wachtmeister was going to make to London. This trip took place just prior to the New Year of 1887, and into the first days of January. Up to that time, both Documents were still in H.P.B.’s hands. In the letter above referred to, she says:

“Send with this mail, Mohini’s ’ Few Words’ and my answer. I had asked him to write down his grievance for me to send to you

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privately-never to address it to ‘sincere theosophists” and make public.—Well there is of the Loyola and Pecksniff in him combined. I wish it could be published, but not by you but by Tookaram—for they would laugh at you if you do yourself, and I do not want to take out what I wrote of you for it is the truth, though you are a d—d humbug with me often enough. But I love sincerely, still. Well good bye. H.P. B.”

There is no record or evidence that either the joint Statement or H.P.B.’s Reply thereto was ever published, or circulated in any other manner, at the time they were penned. Both of these Documents are reproduced below in their proper sequence.––Compiler.]

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1924 and 1931

A FEW WORDS ON THE THEOSOPHICAL ORGANIZATION

BY MOHINI MOHUN CHATTERJI AND ARTHUR GEBHARD

[Published for the first time by C. Jinarâjadâsa in a booklet-form reprint of “The Original Programme” and the “Preliminary Memorandum of the Esoteric Section,” pp. 51-59 (Adyar: Theos. Publ. House, 1931). Reprinted by permission of the Publishers.] As an act of Theosophical duty the following observations on some features of the present organization of the Theosophical Society are submitted to those interested in the progress of true Theosophy. In the “Rules of the Theosophical Society together with an explanation of its objects and principles” for 1885 (the last published) it appears that “The whole Society is under the special care of one General Council, and of the President, its Founder. The members of the General Council shall annually be elected by the Convention and their duties shall consist in advising the President-Founder in regard to all matters referred to them by him.” On pp. 2 et seq. is to be found the list of additional members of the Council, which with some variations has continued for years. This list gives the names of those about whom alone there can be any elective rights exercised by the Convention, the rest being members ex officio. If the election is at all like what is known in the world outside the Theosophical Society the gentlemen appearing in the list ought at all events to be known to the Convention for some acts in pursuance of the “special care” of the Society vested in them by the Rules. But notoriously that is not the case. Practically they are all appointed by the President-Founder. The power of the General Council extends to “advising the President-Founder in regard to all matters referred

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to them by him.” But in the meantime the President-Founder is empowered to issue special orders and provisional rules “in the name and behalf of the General Council” (Rule iv, p. 20). Thus the President-Founder is empowered to pledge the name and credit of the General Council, which enjoys the right “of advising the President-Founder” in the terms of the Rule quoted above. It only remains to add that five, and in emergent cases three, members constitute a quorum of the General Council meetings and that there are over a hundred and fifty members on the Council. There is no such institution in existence as the Parent Society which by the Rules is competent to issue and nullify charters without which “no Branch can be formed or continued.” If however the Parent Society has any existence its constitution is as mysterious as that of the Venetian Council of Three. The centre of power in the Society is thus vested in [a] President who is further armed with the authority of this mysterious body.* The Convention mentioned before and described in Rule ix (p. 20) is in no sense a representative or legal body, being nothing more than the gathering of those among the members who pay a visit to Adyar during the Christmas holidays. These gatherings have a value of their own in contributing to mutual instruction of members. But this value is certainly not increased by grossly misconceiving its character. There is no possibility of any gathering of members of the Theosophical Society binding the whole Society by its resolutions. For a member does not give any undertaking beyond what is implied in his application.† From the standpoint of Universal Brotherhood, however, such action would never be contemplated by any meeting calling itself Theosophical. In illustration it may be mentioned that the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society has completely ignored the rules published by the Head-Quarters at Adyar. Thus it is plain that the Theosophical Society has laws without sanction, a legislative body without legality, a Parent Society without existence and a President-Founder above all rules. How far this is consistent with Theosophy and Brotherhood requires serious consideration. It is also noteworthy that the system of centralization of

–––––––––– * Without a word of explanation the Parent Society has disappeared from the “Rules” dated 1886. † The form of application given in the “Rules” (1885) requires only acquaintance with the rules, while that dated 1886 declares willingness to conform thereto. But neither would validate Rules passed ultra vires as by the Convention. The change in the latest Rules is perhaps intended to remedy this illegal proceeding on the part of the Convention. –––––––––––

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power discussed above is in contravention of rule II (p. 19) which expects members “to govern themselves in their mutual relations according to that principle” (i.e., of Universal Brotherhood).* The matter is placed in a more striking light by the declaration in rule XIV (p. 24) † that the Society has “to deal only with scientific and philosophical subjects.” Hence it is quite evident that the power and position claimed in the “Rules” for the President-Founder, the General Council, and the Convention are opposed to the spirit of the declared objects of the Society. There is no raison d’être for any controlling authority. The different Theosophic groups can but (a) preach and practise Universal Brotherhood, (b) study ancient religion and philosophy, or (c) investigate psychical phenomena. Now, with regard to these matters Theosophy teaches self-culture and not control. The Society rests upon the declaration of sympathy with its objects, which every member makes before admission. As a Brotherhood it must aspire to bring about the state in which the sense of duty is the only incentive to action. Those amongst us who realize it most can and will but recommend greater simplicity of organization and not the reverse.

The Parent Society ‡ being what is described above, no charter to Branches can be issued. Nor is it necessary to do so. The same holds good of diplomas to members on admission without any test of merit. The admission fee paid by members to the office at Adyar is of the nature of taxation and therefore inconsistent with the principle of Brotherhood. Nor does it appear that the Theosophical Society ought to be in need of money. The expenses for the maintenance of a central office at Adyar for keeping records and concentrating information cannot be more than would be met by voluntary contributions. Those for the annual gathering would always be paid by such members as perceive its benefit. A forced gift is unbrotherly; and moreover if the Society and its work are so little appreciated that a closer acquaintance with them will dissuade members from helping them with money to the amount now paid, then it can only be that those who join the Society do so only through misconceptions, and in that case it is better that the Society should cease to exist than that it should be the recipient of gifts which might produce subsequent regret in the donors. For the Theosophical Society to insist upon the fee of £ I before accepting as a brother one who asks for that recognition is the sale of Brotherhood. It is

–––––––––– * This rule is not specifically mentioned in the “Rules” (1886) but is clearly implied. † Rule 25, p. 19 (1886). ‡ The argument is not affected by the substitution of the Parent Society by a Council of Seven. ––––––––––

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worse than useless to keep up a Society, call it Theosophical, and yet show no faith in Theosophy and the principle of Brotherhood. The above was written under the misapprehension that the “Rules” bearing date 1885 were the latest. It has since been found that there is a later version of the rules dated 1886, which have modified the older rules on a great many points. But it is necessary to examine the earlier rules to ascertain the underlying principle which runs through the present ones as well. The chief point is that the Convention has no power to make any rules, as such a power is opposed to the spirit of Theosophy and also because the Convention itself is devoid of legal existence. Is there anything in the declared objects of the Society which allows of the existence of the Convention? Further, the Executive Council constituted or supposed to be so, by the Convention can have no power exceeding that of the Convention. But this it has by rule 14, clause (c), p. 17 of the “Rules” (1886), which limits the power of the Convention to the disposal of “all questions of importance laid before it by the President and Executive Council.” It has no power of effectually checking either. The whole question turns upon this—Is the Theosophical Society a Brotherhood or not? If the former, is it possible to have any centre of arbitrary power? To hold that there is a necessity for such a centre is only a roundabout way of saying that no Brotherhood is possible, but in point of fact that necessity itself is by no means proved. There have been no doubt Brotherhoods under single Masters, but in such cases the Masters were never elected for geographical or other considerations. The natural leader of men was always recognized by his embodying the spirit of Humanity. To institute comparisons would be little short of blasphemy. The greatest amongst men is always the readiest to serve and yet is unconscious of the Service. Let us pause before finally tying the millstone of worldliness round the neck of Theosophy. Let us not forget that Theosophy does not grow in our midst by force and control, but by the sunshine of brotherliness and the dew of self-oblivion. If we do not believe in Brotherhood and Truth, let us put ashes on our head and weep in sackcloth and not rejoice in the purple of authority and in the festive garments of pride and worldliness. Better it is by far that the name of Theosophy should never be heard than that it should be used as the motto of a papal institution. The fact must be recognized that the highest authority in the Society is to be found exactly where there is the untheosophic demand for authority. By rule 12, p. 17 (1886) “no Bye-laws and Rules of Branches shall be valid unless ratified by the President in Council.” What is the meaning of this power? Is it to be understood that the Executive Council sitting at Adyar knows better than the local members what is needed by a distant Branch, never perhaps visited by a single member of the Council?

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More words are useless. Enough has been said to show that the organization called Theosophical presents many features seriously obstructive to the progress of Theosophy, and that unless the danger is perceived in time we shall not know what answer to make when the day of reckoning comes. It would be out of place to suggest any specific measures. For no one who has any faith in Brotherhood and in the power of Truth will fail to perceive what is necessary. While on the other hand if the foregoing words are but a cry in the wilderness, not evoking any definite perception of duty in members of the Theosophical Society, no Theosophic measures can be suggested for the reform of that which is not Theosophical. There is another reason which determines the present course. The tyranny of majorities over minorities is opposed to the principle of Brotherhood. Truth does not depend on show of hands. It only remains to express fraternal wishes that every one of our brothers may feel the full sense of the responsibility which he has undertaken in the name of Truth and Brotherhood. It behooves us to bear in mind—Theosophy first and organization after. MOHINI M. CHATTERJI, F. T. S., for self and A. GEBHARD, F. T. S. ––––––––––

The absence of one of the signatories to the foregoing necessitates the ensuing note to rest on the responsibility of the undersigned alone. That the Convention has practically no authority is evident from the following considerations. By rule 21, clause (d), p. 19 (1886)* it is laid down that “an annual subscription of two shillings shall always be paid in advance by all the active Fellows of the Society”. It is well known that not only individuals but even Branches have refused to pay this subscription. The refusals have been acquiesced in, to all appearances, without any reference to the Convention. Comments are not necessary to show what bearing this has upon Theosophy and the Organization. Is it better to make demands which are abandoned on resistance being offered, or to leave such contributions to the Theosophical feelings of the members? The question for consideration is not whether the Theosophical Society is doing good, but whether it is doing that kind of good which is entitled to the name of Theosophy. And also whether it is

–––––––––– * This rule was first adopted at the Convention of 1883-4. In the edition of 1885 it is Rule II (p. 22). –––––––––––

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not doing spiritual wrong by calling a particular and limited line of good work Divine Wisdom thus excluding other similar work which is being done by other organizations upon which a slur is cast by the limitation put upon the term Theosophy by the Society. MOHINI M. CHATTERJI, Sep. 23, 1886. 77, Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill, London, W.

ARTHUR HENRY PAISLEY GEBHARD-L’ESTRANGE 1885-1944 Courtesy of his widow, Mme. Marie-Josephe Gebhard-L’Estrange. (See Vol. VI, pp. 435-36, for biographical data) Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1924 and 1931

[“ORIGINAL PROGRAMME” MANUSCRIPT]

[Words within square brackets, as well as the italicizing of certain words and sentences, in passages quoted from the Chatterji-Gebhard Statement, are H.P.B.’s own, as careful comparison with the text of the Statement will show. Throughout H.P.B.’s Pronouncement, both in the main text of it, and in some of the footnotes, the occurrence of several dots indicates no elision of words, and is apparently meant to point to the beginning of a new thought which is particularly emphasized. —Compiler.]

In order to leave no room for equivocation, the members of the T.S. have to be reminded of the origin of the Society in 1875. Sent to the U.S. of America in 1873 for the purpose of organizing a group of workers on a psychic plane, two years later the writer received orders from her Master and Teacher to form the nucleus of a regular Society whose objects were broadly stated as follows:

1. Universal Brotherhood;

2. No distinction to be made by the member between races, creeds, or social positions, but every member had to be judged and dealt by on his personal merits;

3. To study the philosophies of the East—those of India chiefly, presenting them gradually to the public in various works that would interpret exoteric religions in the light of esoteric teachings;

4. To oppose materialism and theological dogmatism in every possible way, by demonstrating the existence of

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occult forces unknown to science, in nature, and the presence of psychic and spiritual powers in man; trying, at the same time to enlarge the views of the Spiritualists by showing them that there are other, many other agencies at work in the production of phenomena besides the “Spirits” of the dead. Superstition had to be exposed and avoided; and occult forces, beneficent and maleficent––ever surrounding us and manifesting their presence in various ways—demonstrated to the best of our ability.

Such was the programme in its broad features. The two chief Founders were not told what they had to do, how they had to bring about and quicken the growth of the Society and results desired; nor had they any definite ideas given them concerning its outward organization—all this being left entirely with themselves. Thus, as the undersigned had no capacity for such work as the mechanical formation and administration of a Society, the management of the latter was left in the hands of Col. H. S. Olcott, then and there elected by the primitive founders and members—President for life. But if the two Founders were not told what they had to do, they were distinctly instructed about what they should never do, what they had to avoid, and what the Society should never become. Church organizations, Christian and Spiritual sects were shown as the future contrasts to our Society.* To make it clearer:—

––––––––––– * A liberal Christian member of the T.S. having objected to the study of Oriental religions and doubted whether there was room left for any new Society—a letter answering his objections and preference to Christianity was received and the contents copied for him; after which he denied no longer the advisability of such a Society as the proposed Theosophical Association. A few extracts from this early letter will show plainly the nature of the Society as then contemplated, and that we have tried only to follow, and carry out in the best way we could the intentions of the true originators of the Society in those days. The pious gentleman having claimed that he was a theosophist and had a right of judgment over other people was told . . . “You have no right to such a title. You are only a philo-theosophist; as one who has reached to the full comprehension of the –––––––––––

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(1) The Founders had to exercise all their influence to oppose selfishness of any kind, by insisting upon sincere, fraternal feelings among the Members—at least outwardly; working for it to bring about a spirit of unity and harmony, the great diversity of creeds notwithstanding; expecting and demanding from the Fellows, a great mutual toleration and charity for each other’s shortcomings; mutual help in the research of truths in every domain—moral or physical—and even, in daily life.

–––––––––– name and nature of a theosophist will sit in judgment on no man or action. . . . You claim that your religion is the highest and final step toward divine Wisdom on this earth, and that it has introduced into the arteries of the old decaying world new blood and life and verities that had remained unknown to the heathen? If it were so indeed, then your religion would have introduced the highest truths into all the social, civil and international relations of Christendom. Instead of that as anyone can perceive, your social as your private life is not based upon a common moral solidarity but only on constant mutual counteraction and purely mechanical equilibrium of individual powers and interests . . . . If you would be a theosophist you must not do as those around you do who call on a God of Truth and Love and serve the dark Powers of Might, Greed and Luck. We look in the midst of your Christian civilization and see the same sad signs of old: the realities of your daily lives are diametrically opposed to your religious ideal, but you feel it not; the thought that the very laws that govern your being whether in the domain of politics or social economy clash painfully with the origins of your religion—do not seem to trouble you in the least. But if the nations of the West are so fully convinced that the ideal can never become practical and the practical will never reach the ideal—then, you have to make your choice: either it is your religion that is impracticable, and in that case it is no better than a vain-glorious delusion, or it might find a practical application, but it is you yourselves, who do not care to apply its ethics to your daily walk in life . . . Hence, before you invite other nations ‘to the King’s festival table’ from which your guests arise more starved than before, you should, ere you try to bring them to your own way of thinking, look into the repasts they offer to you . . . Under the dominion and sway of exoteric creeds, the grotesque and tortured shadows of theosophical realities, there must ever be the same oppression of the weak and the poor and the same typhonic struggle of the wealthy and the mighty among themselves . . . It is esoteric philosophy alone, the spiritual and psychic blending of man with Nature that, by revealing fundamental truths, can bring that much ––––––––––

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(2) They had to oppose in the strongest manner possible anything approaching dogmatic faith and fanaticism—belief in the infallibility of the Masters, or even in the very existence of our invisible Teachers, having to be checked from the first. On the other hand, as a great respect for the private views and creeds of every member was demanded, any Fellow criticising the faith or belief of another Fellow, hurting his feelings, or showing a reprehensible self-assertion, unasked (mutual friendly advices were a duty unless declined)—such a member incurred expulsion. The greatest spirit of free research untrammelled by anyone or anything, had to be encouraged.

Thus, for the first year the Members of the T. Body who representing every class in Society as every creed and belief—Christian clergymen, Spiritualists, Freethinkers, Mystics, Masons and Materialists—lived and met under these rules in peace and friendship. There were two or three expulsions for slander and backbiting. The rules, however imperfect in their tentative character, were strictly enforced and respected by the members The original $5, initiation fee, was soon abolished as.

––––––––––– desired mediate state between the two extremes of human Egotism and divine Altruism and finally lead to the alleviation of human suffering . . .” (See last page for contin.)

[So in manuscript. The continuation of this letter from one of the Teachers—we do not know which one—is on page 169 of the present volume, beginning with the words: “Theosophy must not represent . . . ,” etc. Certain portions of this letter were used by H.P.B. in her magazine Lucifer, Vol. I, January, 1888, pp. 344-46, under the title of “Some Words on Daily Life,” and credited therein to “A Master of Wisdom.” Lucifer’s version begins with the sentence: “It is divine philosophy alone . . . . . ,” and continues with: “Theosophy should not represent . . . . . ” There are changes and considerable amplifications of the main ideas, which are not in the Adyar manuscript. Nothing further seems to be known about this letter from one of the Teachers, and the whereabouts of the original are unknown. ––Compiler.] –––––––––––

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inconsistent with the spirit of the Association: members had enthusiastically promised to support the Parent Society and defray the expenses of machines for experiments, books, the fees of the Recording Secretary,* etc., etc. This was Reform No. I. Three months after, Mr. H.J. Newton, the Treasurer, a rich gentleman of New York,† showed that no one had paid anything or helped him to defray the current expenses for the Hall of meetings, stationery, printing, etc., and that he had to carry the burden of those expenses alone. He went on for a short time longer, then—he resigned as Treasurer. It was the President-Founder, Col. H. S. Olcott, who had to pay henceforth for all. He did so for over 18 months. The “fee” was re-established, before the Founders left for India with the two English delegates—now their mortal enemies; but the money collected was for the Arya Samaj of Aryavarta with which Society the Theosophical became affiliated. It is the Prest.-Founder, who paid the enormous travelling expenses from America to India, and those of installation in Bombay, and who supported the two delegates out of his own pocket for nearly 18 months. When he had no more money left, nor the Corresponding Secretary either—a resolution was passed that the “initiation fee” sums should go towards supporting the Head Quarters.

Owing to the rapid increase in the Society in India, the present Rules and Statutes grew out. They are not the outcome of the deliberate thought and whim of the Prest.-Founder, but the result of the yearly meetings of the General Council at the Anniversaries. If the members of that G. C. have framed them so as to give a wider authority to the President-Founder, it was the result of their absolute confidence in him, in his devotion and love for the Society, and not at all—as implied in “A Few Words”—a proof of his love for power and authority. Of this, however, later on. ––––––––––– * Mr. J. S. Cobb. [Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index under COBB.] † [Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index under NEWTON for further data.] ––––––––––

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It was never denied that the Organization of the Theosophical Society was very imperfect. Errare humanum est. But, if it can be shown that the President has done what he could under the circumstances and in the best way he knew how—no one, least of all a theosophist, can charge him with the sins of the whole community as now done. From the founders down to the humblest member the Society is composed of imperfect mortal men—not gods. This was always claimed by its leaders. “He who feels without sin, let him cast the first stone.” It is the duty of every Member of the Council to offer advice and to bring for the consideration of the whole body any incorrect proceedings One of the plaintiffs is a Councillor. Having never used his privileges as one, in the matter of the complaints now proffered—and thus, having no excuse to give that his just representations were not listened to, he by bringing out publicly what he had to state first privately—sins against Rule XII. The whole paper now reads like a defamatory aspersion, being full of untheosophical and unbrotherly insinuations—which the writers thereof could never have had in view. This Rule XIIth was one of the first and the wisest. It is by neglecting to have it enforced when most needed, that the President-Founder has brought upon himself the present penalty.* It is his too great indulgence and unwise carelessness that have led to all such charges of abuse of power, love of authority, show, of vanity, etc., etc. Let us see how far it may have been deserved. As shown for 12 years the Founder has toiled almost alone in the interests of the Society and the general good—hence, not his own, and, the only complaint he was heard to utter was, that he was left no time for self-development

–––––––––– * For years the wise rule by which any member accused of backbiting or slander was expelled from the Society after sufficient evidence—has become obsolete. There have been two or three solitary cases of expulsion for the same in cases of members of no importance. Europeans of position and name were allowed to cover the Society literally with mud and slander their Brothers with perfect impunity. This is the President’s Karma—and it is just. ––––––––––

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and study. The results of this too just complaint are, that those for whom he toiled, are the first to fling at him the reproach of being ignorant of certain Hindu terms, of using one term for another, for instance of having applied the word “Jivanmukta” to a Hindu chela, on one occasion! The crime is a terrible one, indeed . . . We know of “chelas,” who being Hindus, are sure never to confuse such well known terms in their religion; but who, on the other hand, pursue Jivanmuktship and the highest theosophical Ethics through the royal road of selfish ambition, lies, slander, ingratitude and backbiting. Every road leads to Rome; this is evident; and there is such a thing in Nature as “Mahatma”-Dugpas . . . It would be desirable for the cause of theosophy and truth, however, were all the critics of our President in general, less learned, yet found reaching more to the level of his all-forgiving good nature, his thorough sincerity and unselfishness; as the rest of the members less inclined to lend a willing ear to those, who, like the said “Vicars of Bray” have developed a hatred for the Founders—for reasons unknown.

The above advice is offered to the two Theosophists who have just framed their “Few Words on the Theosophical Organization.” That they are not alone in their complaints (which, translated from their diplomatic into plain language look a good deal in the present case like a mere “querelle d’allemand”) and that the said complaints are in a great measure just,—is frankly admitted. Hence, the writer must be permitted to speak in this, her answer, of theosophy and theosophists in general, instead of limiting the Reply strictly to the complaints uttered. There is not the slightest desire to be personal; yet, there has accumulated of late such a mass of incandescent material in the Society, by that eternal friction of precisely such “selfish personalities,” that it is certainly wise to try to smother the sparks in time, by pointing out to their true nature.

Demands, and a feeling of necessity for reforms have not originated with the two complainants. They date

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from several years, and there has never been a question of avoiding reforms, but rather a failure of finding such means as would satisfy all the theosophists. To the present day, we have yet to find that “wise man” from the East or from the West, who could not only diagnosticate the disease in the Theosophical Society, but offer advice and a remedy likewise to cure it. It is easy to write: “It would be out of place to suggest any specific measures [for such reforms, which do seem more difficult to suggest than to be vaguely hinted at]. For no one who has any faith in Brotherhood and in the power of Truth will fail to perceive what is necessary,”—concludes the critic. One may, perhaps, have such faith and yet fail to perceive what is most necessary. Two heads are better than one; and if any practical reforms have suggested themselves to our severe judges their refusal to give us the benefit of their discovery would be most unbrotherly. So far, however, we have received only most impracticable suggestions for reforms whenever these came to be specified. The Founders, and the whole Central Society at the Headquarters, for instance, are invited to demonstrate their theosophical natures by living like “fowls in the air and lilies of the field,” which neither sow nor reap, toil not, nor spin and “take no thought for the morrow.” This being found hardly practicable, even in India, where a man may go about in the garment of an Angel, but has, nevertheless, to pay rent and taxes, another proposition, then a third one and a fourth—each less practicable than the preceding—were offered . . . the unavoidable rejection of which led finally to the criticism now under review.

After carefully reading “A Few Words, etc.,” no very acute intellect is needed to perceive that, although no “specific measures” are offered in them, the drift of the whole argument tends but to one conclusion, a kind of syllogism more Hindu than metaphysical. Epitomised, the remarks therein plainly say: “Destroy the bad results pointed out by destroying the causes that generate them.” Such is the apocalyptic meaning of the paper, although

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both causes and results are made painfully and flagrantly objective and that they may be rendered in this wise: Being shown that the Society is the result and fruition of a bad President; and the latter being the outcome of such an “untheosophically” organized Society—and, its worse than useless General Council—“make away with all these Causes and the results will disappear”; i.e., the Society will have ceased to exist. Is this the heart-desire of the two true and sincere Theosophists?

The complaints—“submitted to those interested in the progress of true Theosophy”—which seems to mean “theosophy divorced from the Society”—may now be noticed in order and answered. They specify the following objections:—

(I) To the language of the Rules with regard to the powers invested in the President-Founder by the General Council. This objection seems very right. The sentence . . . The duties of the Council “shall consist in advising the P.F. in regard to all matters referred to them by him” may be easily construed as implying that on all matters not referred to the Council by the Pres.-Founder . . . its members will hold their tongues. The Rules are changed, at any rate they are corrected and altered yearly. This sentence can be taken out. The harm, so far, is not so terrible. (II) It is shown that many members ex-officio whose names are found on the list of the General Council are not known to the Convention; that they are, very likely, not even interested in the Society “under their special care”; a body they had joined at one time, then probably forgotten its existence in the meanwhile, to withdraw themselves from the Association. The argument implied is very valid. Why not point it out officially to the Members residing at, or visiting the Head-Quarters, the impropriety of such a parading of names? Yet, in what respect can this administrative blunder, or

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carelessness, interfere with, or impede “the progress of true theosophy”?*

(III) “The members are appointed by the President-Founder . . . it is complained; the General Council only advises on what is submitted to it”. . . and “in the meantime that P.F. is empowered to issue special orders and provisional rules,” on behalf of that (“dummy”) Council. (Rule IV, p. 20.) Moreover, it is urged that out of a number of 150 members of the G. Council, a quorum of 5 and even 3 members present, may, should it be found necessary by the President, decide upon any question of vital importance, etc., etc., etc.

Such an “untheosophical” display of authority, is objected to by Messrs. M. M. Chatterji and A. Gebhard, on the grounds that it leads the Society to Caesarism, to “tyranny” and papal infallibility, etc., etc. However right the two complainants may be in principle it is impossible to fail seeing, the absurd exaggerations of the epithets used; for, having just been accused on one page of “tyrannical authority,” of “centralization of power” and a “papal institution” (p. 9)—on page 11, the President-Founder is shown “issuing special orders” from that “centre of Caesarism”—which no one is bound to obey, unless he so wishes! “It is well known” remarks the principal writer—“that not only individuals but even Branches have refused to pay this [annual] subscription . . . of . . . two shillings” (p. 11); without any bad effect for themselves, resulting out of it, as appears. Thus it would seem it is not to a non-existent authority that objections should be made, but simply to a vain and useless display of power that no one cares for. The policy of issuing “special orders” with such sorry results is indeed objectionable; only, not on the ground of a tendency to Caesarism, but simply because it becomes highly ridiculous. The undersigned for one, has many a time objected to it, moved however,

–––––––––– * Furthermore the writer of the complaints in “A Few Words, etc.” is himself a member of the General Council for over two years (see Rules 1885); why has he not spoken earlier? ––––––––––

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more by a spirit of worldly pride and an untheosophical feeling of self-respect than anything like Yogi humility. It is admitted with regret that the world of scoffers and non-theosophists might, if they heard of it, find in it a capital matter for fun. But the real wonder is, how can certain European theosophists, who have bravely defied the world to make them wince under any amount of ridicule, once they acted in accordance with the dictates of their conscience and duty—make a crime of what is at the worst a harmless, even if ridiculous, bit of vanity; a desire of giving importance—not to the Founder, but to his Society for which he is ready to die any day. One kind of ridicule is worth another. The Western theosophist, who for certain magnetic reasons wears his hair long and shows otherwise eccentricity in his dress, will be spared no more than his President, with his “special orders.” Only the latter, remaining as kindly disposed and brotherly to the “individual theosophist and even a Branch”— that snub him and his “order,” by refusing to pay what others do—shows himself ten-fold more theosophical and true to the principle of Brotherhood, than the former, who traduces and denounces him in such uncharitable terms, instead of kindly warning him of the bad effect produced. Unfortunately, it is not those who speak the loudest of virtue and theosophy, who are the best exemplars of both. Few of them, if any, have tried to cast out the beam from their own eye, before they raised their voices against the mote in the eye of a brother. Furthermore, it seems to have become quite the theosophical rage in these days, to denounce vehemently, yet never to offer to help pulling out any such motes.

The Society is bitterly criticized for asking every well-to-do theosophist (the poor are exempt from it, from the first) to pay annually two shillings to help defraying the expenses at Head-Quarters. It is denounced as “untheosophical,” “unbrotherly,” and the “admission fee” of £1, is declared no better than a “sale of Brotherhood.” In this our “Brotherhood” may be shown again on a far higher level than any other association past or present.

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The Theosophical Society has never shown the ambitious pretension to outshine in theosophy and brotherliness, the primitive Brotherhood of Jesus and his Apostles,* and that “Organization,” besides asking and being occasionally refused, helped itself without asking, and as a matter of fact in a real community of Brothers. Nevertheless, such action, that would seem highly untheosophical and prejudicial in our day of culture when nations alone are privileged to pocket each other’s property and expect to be honoured for it—does not seem to have been an obstacle in the way of deification and sanctification of the said early “Brotherly” group. Our Society had never certainly any idea of rising superior to the brotherliness and ethics preached by Christ, but only to those of the sham Christianity of the Churches—as originally ordered to, by our MASTERS. And if we do not worse than the Gospel Brotherhood did, and far better than any Church, which would expel any member refusing too long to pay his Church rates, it is really hard to see why our “Organization” should be ostracized by its own members. At any rate, the pens of the latter ought to show themselves less acerb, in these days of trouble when every one seems bent on finding fault with the Society, and few to help it, and that the President-Founder is alone to work and toil with a few devoted theosophists at Adyar to assist him.

(IV) “There is no such institution in existence as the Parent Society”—we are told (pp. 2 and 3). “It has disappeared from the Rules and . . . has no legal existence” . . . The Society being unchartered, it has not—legally; but no more has any theosophist a legal existence, for the matter of that. Is there one single member throughout the whole globe who would be recognised by law or before a Magistrate—as a theosophist? Why then do the gentlemen “complainants” call themselves “theosophists” if the

–––––––––– * Yet, the Theosophical Brotherhood does seem doomed to outrival the group of Apostles in the number of its denying Peters, its unbelieving Thomases, and even Iscariots occasionally, ready to sell their Brotherhood for less than thirty sheckles of silver! –––––––––––

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latter qualification has no better legal standing than the said “Parent Society” or the Head-Quarters itself? But the Parent-body does exist, and will, so long as the last man or woman of the primitive group of Theosophists-Founders is alive. This—as a body; as for its moral characteristics, the Parent-Society means that small nucleus of theosophists who hold sacredly through storm and blows to the original programme of the T.S. as established under the direction and orders of those, whom they recognize—and will, to their last breath––as the real originators of the Movement, their living, Holy MASTERS AND TEACHERS.*

(V) The complaints then, that the T.S. “has laws without sanction, a legislative body without legality, a Parent Society without existence,” and, worse than all—“a President-Founder above all rules”—are thus shown only partially correct. But even were they all absolutely true, it would be easy to abolish such rules with one stroke of the pen, or to modify them. But now comes the curious part of that severe philippic against the T.S. by our eloquent Demosthenes. After six pages (out of the twelve) had been filled with the said charges, the writer admits on the 7th,—that they have been so modified!—“The above” we learn (rather late) “was written under the misapprehension that the Rules bearing date 1885 were the latest. It has since been found that there is a later version of the Rules dated 1886, which have modified

–––––––––– * The members of the T.S. know, and those who do not should be told, that the term “Mahatma,” now so subtly analysed and controverted, for some mysterious reasons had never been applied to our Masters before our arrival in India. For years they were known as the “Adept-Brothers,” the “Masters,” etc. It is the Hindus themselves who began applying the term to the two Teachers. This is no place for an etymological disquisition and the fitness or unfitness of the qualification, in the case in hand. As a state, Mahatmaship is one thing, as a double noun, Maha-atma (Great Soul), quite another one. Hindus ought to know the value of metaphysical Sanskrit names used; and it is they the first, who have used it to designate the MASTERS. ––––––––––

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the older rules on a great many points.” So much the better. —Why recall in such case mistakes in the past if these exist no longer? But the accusers do not see it in this light. They are determined to act as a theosophical Nemesis; and in no way daunted by the discovery, they add that nevertheless “it is necessary to examine the earlier rules to ascertain the underlying principle which runs through the present ones as well.” This reminds of the fable of “the Wolf and the Lamb.” But—you see—“the chief point is that the Convention has no power to make any rules, as such a power is opposed to the spirit of Theosophy. . . . ,” etc., etc.

Now this is the most extraordinary argument that could be made. At this rate no Brotherhood, no Association, no Society is possible. More than this: no theosophist, however holy his present life may be, would have the right to call himself one; for were it always found necessary to examine his earlier life, “to ascertain the underlying principle” which rules through the nature of the present man—ten to one, he would be found unfit to be called a theosophist! The experiment would hardly be found pleasant to the majority of those whom association with the T.S. has reformed, and of such there are a good many.

After such virulent and severe denunciations one might expect some good, friendly and theosophically practical advice. Not at all, and none is offered, since we have been already told (p. 9) that it would be “out of place to suggest any specific measures. For no one who has any faith in Brotherhood and in the power of Truth will fail to perceive what is necessary.” The President-Founder, has no faith in either “Brotherhood,” or “the power of Truth”—apparently. This is made evident by his having failed to perceive (a) that the Head-Quarters —opened to all Theosophists of any race or social position, board and lodging free of charge the whole year round—was an unbrotherly Organization; (b) that the “central office at Adyar for keeping records and concentrating information” with its European and Hindu inmates

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working gratuitously and some helping it with their own money whenever they have it—ought to be carried on, according to the method and principle of George Muller of Bristol, namely, the numerous household and staff of officers at Adyar headed by the Prest.-Founder ought to kneel every morning in prayer for their bread and milk appealing for their meals to “miracle”; and that finally, and (c) all the good the Society is doing, is no good whatever but “a spiritual wrong,” because it presumes to call a “limited line of good work [theosophy] Divine Wisdom.” The undersigned is an ever patient theosophist, who has hitherto laboured under the impression that no amount of subtle scholasticism and tortured casuistry but could find like the Rosetta stone its Champollion—some day. The most acute among theosophists are now invited to make out in “A Few Words”—what the writers or writer is driving at—unless in plain and unvarnished language, it be—“Down with the Theosophical Society, Prest.-Founder and its Head-Quarters!” This is the only possible explanation of the twelve pages of denunciations to which a reply is now attempted. What can indeed be made out of the following jumble of contradictory statements:—

(a) The Prest.-Founder having been shown throughout as a “tyrant,” a “would be Caesar,” “aiming at papal power” and a “Venetian Council of Three,” and other words to that effect implied in almost every sentence of the paper under review, it is confessed in the same breath “that the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society has completely ignored the Rules [of the Pope Caesar] published by the Headquarters at Adyar”! (p. 4). And yet, the “L.L. of the T.S.” still lives and breathes and one has heard of no anathema pronounced against it, so far . . . (b) Rule XIV stating that the Society has “to deal only with scientific and philosophical subjects,” hence, “it is quite evident [?] that the power and position claimed in the Rules for the Prest.-Founder, the General Council and the Convention are opposed to the spirit of the declared objects. . .”

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It might have been as well perhaps to quote the entire paragraph in which these words appear,* once that hairs are split about the possibly faulty reaction of the Rules? Is it not self-evident, that the words brought forward “only with scientific and philosophical subjects” are inserted as a necessary caution to true theosophists, who by dealing with politics within any Branch Society might bring disgrace and ruin on the whole body,—in India to begin with? Has the Society or has it not over 140 Societies scattered through four parts of the World to take care of? As in the case of “Mahatmas” and the “Mahatmaship”—active work of the Theosophical Society is confused—willingly or otherwise it is not for the writer to decide—with Theosophy. No need of entering here upon the difference between the jar that contains a liquid and the nature of, or that liquid itself. “Theosophy teaches self-culture and not control,” we are told. Theosophy teaches mutual-culture before self-culture to begin with. Union is strength. It is by gathering many theosophists of the same way of thinking into one or more groups, and making them closely united by the same magnetic bond of fraternal unity and sympathy that the objects of mutual development and progress in Theosophical thought may be best achieved. “Self-culture” is for isolated Hatha Yogis, independent of any Society and having to avoid association with human beings; and this is a triply distilled SELFISHNESS. For real moral advancement—there “where two or three are

–––––––––– * “XIV. The Society having to deal only with scientific and philosophical subjects, and having Branches in different parts of the world under various forms of Government, does not permit its members, as such, to interfere with politics, and repudiates any attempt on the part of anyone to commit it in favor or against any political party or measure. Violation of this rule will meet with expulsion.” This rather alters the complexion put on the charge, which seems conveniently to forget that “scientific and philosophical subjects” are not the only declared objects of the Society. Let us not leave room for a doubt that there is more animus underlying the charges than would be strictly theosophical. ––––––––––

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gathered” in the name of the SPIRIT OF TRUTH—there that Spirit of Theosophy will be in the midst of them. To say that theosophy has no need of a Society—a vehicle and centre thereof,—is like affirming that the Wisdom of the Ages collected in thousands of volumes at the British Museum has no need of either the edifice that contains it, nor the works in which it is found. Why not advise the British Govt. on its lack of discrimination and its worldliness in not destroying Museum and all its vehicles of Wisdom? Why spend such sums of money and pay so many officers to watch over its treasures, the more so, since many of its guardians may be quite out of keeping with, and opposed to the Spirit of that Wisdom? The Directors of such Museums may or may not be very perfect men, and some of their assistants may have never opened a philosophical work: yet, it is they who take care of the library and preserving it for future generations are indirectly entitled to their thanks. How much more gratitude is due to those who like our self-sacrificing theosophists at Adyar, devote their lives to, and give their services gratuitously to the good of Humanity!

Diplomas, and Charters are objected to, and chiefly the “admission fee.” The latter is a “taxation,” and therefore “inconsistent with the principle of Brotherhood” . . . A “ forced gift is unbrotherly,” etc., etc. It would be curious to see where the T.S. would be led to, were the Pt.-F. to religiously follow the proffered advices. “Initiation” on admission, has been made away with already in Europe, and has led to that which will very soon become known: no use mentioning it at present. Now the “Charters” and diplomas would follow. Hence no document to show for any group, and no diploma to prove that one is affiliated to the Society. Hence also perfect liberty to any one to either call himself a theosophist, or deny he is one. The “admission fee”? Indeed, it has to be regarded as a terrible and unbrotherly “extortion,” and a “forced gift,” in the face of those thousands of Masonic Lodges, of Clubs, Associations, Societies, Leagues, and even the “Salvation Army.” The former,

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extort yearly fortunes from their Members; the latter—throttle in the name of Jesus the masses and appealing to voluntary contributions make the converts pay, and pay in their turn every one of their “officers,” none of whom will serve the “Army” for nothing. Yet it would be well, perchance, were our members to follow the example of the Masons in their solidarity of thought and action and at least outward Union, notwithstanding that receiving a thousand times more from their members they give them in return still less than we do, whether spiritually or morally. This solitary single guinea expected from every new member is spent in less than one week, as was calculated, on postage and correspondence with theosophists. Or are we to understand that all correspondence with members—now left to “self-culture”—is also to cease and has to follow diplomas, Charters and the rest? Then truly, the Head-Quarters and Office have better be closed. A simple Query—however: Have the £1.—the yearly contribution to the L.L. of the T.S., and the further sum of 2/6d. to the Oriental Group been abolished as “ acts of unbrotherly extortion,” and how long, if so, have they begun to be regarded as “a sale of Brotherhood”?

To continue: the charges wind up with the following remarks, so profound, that it requires a deeper head than ours to fathom all that underlies the words contained in them. “Is the Theosophical Society a Brotherhood, or not?” queries the plaintiff—“if the former, is it possible to have any centre of arbitrary power? * To hold that there is a necessity for such a centre is only a round-about way of saying that no Brotherhood is possible,† but in point of fact that necessity itself is by no means proved [!?]. There

–––––––––– * It is the first time since the T.S. exists that such an accusation of arbitrary power, is brought forward. Not many will be found of this way of thinking. † No need taking a roundabout way, to say that no Brotherhood would ever be possible if many theosophists shared the very original views of the writer. ––––––––––

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have been no doubt Brotherhoods under single Masters [there “have been” and still are. H. P. B.], but in such cases the Masters were never elected for geographical or other considerations [?]. The natural leader of men was always recognized by his embodying the spirit of Humanity. To institute comparisons would be little short of blasphemy. The greatest among men is always the readiest to serve and yet is unconscious of the Service.

“Let us pause before finally tying the millstone of worldliness round the neck of Theosophy. Let us not forget that Theosophy does not grow in our midst by force and control, but by the sunshine of brotherliness and the dew of self-oblivion. If we do not believe in Brotherhood and Truth, let us put ashes on our head and weep in sackcloth and not rejoice in the purple of authority and in the festive garments of pride and worldliness. Better it is by far that the name of Theosophy should never be heard than that it should be used as the motto of a papal institution.”

Who, upon reading this, and being ignorant that the above piece of rhetorical flowers of speech is directed against the luckless Prest.-Founder—would not have in his “mind’s eye”—an Alexander Borgia, a Caligula, or to say the least—General Booth in his latest metamorphosis! When, how, or by doing what, has our good natured, unselfish, ever kind President merited such a Ciceronian tirade? The state of things denounced exists now for almost twelve years, and our accuser knew of it and even took an active part in its organization, Conventions, Councils, Rules, etc., etc., at Bombay, and at Adyar. This virulent sortie is no doubt due to “SELF-CULTURE”? The critic has outgrown the movement and turned his face from the original programme; hence his severity. But where is the true theosophical charity, the tolerance and the “sunshine of brotherliness” just spoken of, and so insisted upon? Verily—it is easy to preach the “dew of self-oblivion” when one has nothing to think about except to evolve such finely rounded phrases; were every theosophist at Adyar to have his daily wants and even

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comforts, his board, lodging and all, attended to by a wealthier theosophist; and were the same “sunshine of brotherliness” to be poured upon him, as it is upon the critic who found for himself an endless brotherly care, a fraternal and self-sacrificing devotion in two other noble minded members, then—would there be little need for the President-Founder to call upon and humble himself before our theosophists. For, if he has to beg for 2 annual shillings—it is, in order that those—Europeans and Hindus—who work night and day at Adyar, giving their services free and receiving little thanks or honour for it should have at least one meal a day. The fresh “dew of self-oblivion” must not be permitted to chill one’s heart, and turn into the lethal mold of forgetfulness to such an extent as that. The severe critic seems to have lost sight of the fact that for months, during the last crisis, the whole staff of our devoted Adyar officers, from the President down to the youngest brother in the office, have lived on 5d. a day each, having reduced their meals to the minimum. And it is this mite, the proceeds of the “2 shill. contribution,” conscientiously paid by some that is now called extortion, a desire to live “in the purple of authority and in the festive garments of pride and worldliness”!

Our “Brother” is right. Let us “weep in sackcloth and ashes on our head” if the T.S. has many more such unbrotherly criticisms to bear. Truly it would be far better “that the name of Theosophy should never be heard than that it should be used as the motto”—not of papal authority which exists nowhere at Adyar outside the critic’s imagination—but as a motto of a “self-developed fanaticism.” All the great services otherwise rendered to the Society, all the noble work done by the complainant will pale and vanish before such an appearance of cold-heartedness. Surely he cannot desire the annihilation of the Society? And if he did it would be useless: the T.S. cannot be destroyed as a body. It is not in the power of either Founders or their critics; and neither friend nor enemy can ruin that which is doomed to exist, all the blunders of

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its leaders notwithstanding. That which was generated through and founded by the “High Masters” and under their authority if not their instruction—MUST AND WILL LIVE. Each of us and all will receive his or her Karma in it, but the vehicle of Theosophy will stand indestructible and undestroyed by the hand of whether man or fiend. No; “truth does not depend on show of hands”; but in the case of the much-abused President-Founder it must depend on the show of facts. Thorny and full of pitfalls was the steep path he had to climb up alone and unaided for the first years. Terrible was the opposition outside the Society he had to build—sickening and disheartening the treachery he often encountered within the Head-Quarters. Enemies gnashing their teeth in his face around, those whom he regarded as his staunchest friends and co-workers betraying him and the Cause on the slightest provocation. Still, where hundreds in his place would have collapsed and given up the whole undertaking in despair, he, unmoved and unmovable, went on climbing up and toiling as before, unrelenting and undismayed, supported by that one thought and conviction that he was doing his duty. What other inducement has the Founder ever had, but his theosophical pledge and the sense of his duty toward THOSE he had promised to serve to the end of his life? There was but one beacon for him—the hand that had first pointed to him his way up: the hand of the MASTER he loves and reveres so well, and serves so devotedly though occasionally perhaps, unwisely. President elected for life, he has nevertheless offered more than once to resign in favour of any one found worthier than him, but was never permitted to do so by the majority—not of “show of hands” but show of hearts, literally,—as few are more beloved than he is even by most of those, who may criticise occasionally his actions. And this is only natural: for cleverer in administrative capacities, more learned in philosophy, subtler in casuistry, in metaphysics or daily life policy, there may be many around him; but the whole globe may be searched through and through and no one found stauncher to his friends, truer to his word, or more devoted to real,

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practical theosophy—than the President-Founder; and these are the chief requisites in a leader of such a movement—one that aims to become a Brotherhood of men. The Society needs no Loyolas; it has to shun anything approaching casuistry; nor ought we to tolerate too subtle casuists. There, where every individual has to work out his own Karma, the judgment of a casuist who takes upon himself the duty of pronouncing upon the state of a brother’s soul, or guide his conscience is of no use, and may become positively injurious. The Founder claims no more rights than everyone else in the Society: the right of private judgment, which, whenever it is found to disagree with Branches or individuals are quietly set aside and ignored—as shown by the complainants themselves. This then, is the sole crime of the would-be culprit, and no worse than this can be laid at his door. And yet what is the reward of that kind man? He, who has never refused a service, outside what he considers his official duties—to any living being; he who has redeemed dozens of men, young and old from dissipated, often immoral lives and saved others from terrible scrapes by giving them a safe refuge in the Society; he, who has placed others again, on the pinnacle of Saintship through their status in that Society, when otherwise they would have indeed found themselves now in the meshes of “worldliness” and perhaps worse;—he, that true friend of every theosophist, and verily “the readiest to serve and as unconscious of the service”—he is now taken to task for what?—for insignificant blunders, for useless “special, orders,” a childish, rather than untheosophical love of display, out of pure devotion to his Society. Is then human nature to be viewed so uncharitably by us, as to call untheosophical, worldly and sinful the natural impulse of a mother to dress up her child and parade it to the best advantages? The comparison may be laughed at, but if it is, it will be only by him who would, like the fanatical Christian of old, or the naked, dishevelled Yogi of India—have no more charity for the smallest human weakness. Yet, the simile is quite correct, since the Society is the child, the beloved creation of the Founder;

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he may be well forgiven for this too exaggerated love for that for which he has suffered and toiled more than all other theosophists put together. He is called “worldly,” “ambitious of power” and untheosophical for it. Very well; let then any impartial judge compare the life of the Founder with those of most of his critics, and see which was the most theosophical ever since the Society sprang into existence. If no better results have been achieved, it is not the President who ought to be taken to task for it, but the Members themselves, as he has been ever trying to promote its growth, and the majority of “Fellows” have either done nothing, or created obstacles in the way of its progress through sins of omission as of commission. Better unwise activity, than an overdose of too wise inactivity, apathy or indifference which are always the death of an undertaking.

Nevertheless, it is the members who now seek to sit in Solomon’s seat; and they tell us that the Society is useless, its President positively mischievous, and that the Head-Quarters ought to be done away with, as “the organization called Theosophical presents many features seriously obstructive to the progress of Theosophy.” Trees, however, have to be judged by their fruits. It was just shown that no “special orders” issuing from the “Centre of Power” called Adyar, could affect in any way whatever either Branch or individual; and therefore any theosophist bent on “self-culture,” “self-involution” or any kind of selfness, is at liberty to do so; and if, instead of using his rights he will apply his brain-power to criticize other people’s actions then it is he who becomes the obstructionist and not at all the “Organization called Theosophical.” For, if theosophy is anywhere practised on this globe, it is at Adyar, at the Head-Quarters. Let “those interested in the progress of true theosophy” appealed to by the writers look around them and judge. See the Branch Societies and compare them with the group that works in that “Centre of Power.” Admire the “progress of theosophy” at Paris, London and even America. Behold, in the great “Brotherhood,” a true Pandemonium of which

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the Spirit of Strife and Hatred himself might be proud! Everywhere—quarrelling, fighting for supremacy; backbiting, slandering, scandal-mongering for the last two years; a veritable battlefield, on which several members have so disgraced themselves and their Society by trying to disgrace others, that they have actually become more like hyenas than human beings by digging into the graves of the Past, in the hopes of bringing forward old forgotten slanders and scandals!

At Adyar alone, at the Head-Quarters of the Theosophical Society, the Theosophists are that which they ought to be everywhere else: true theosophists and not merely philosophers and Sophists. In that centre alone are now grouped together the few solitary, practically working Members, who labor and toil, quietly and uninterruptedly, while those Brothers for whose sake they are working, sit in the dolce far niente of the West and criticise them. Is this “true theosophical and brotherly work,” to advise to put down and disestablish the only “centre” where real brotherly, humanitarian work is being accomplished?

“Theosophy first and organization after.” Golden words, these. But where would Theosophy be heard of now, had not its Society been organized before its Spirit and a desire for it had permeated the whole world? And would Vedanta and other Hindu philosophies have been ever taught and studied in England outside the walls of Oxford and Cambridge, had it not been for that organization that fished them like forgotten pearls out of the Ocean of Oblivion and Ignorance and brought them forward before the profane world? Nay, kind Brothers and critics, would the Hindu exponents of that sublime philosophy themselves have ever been known outside the walls of Calcutta, had not the Founders, obedient to the ORDERS received, forced the remarkable learning and philosophy of those exponents upon the recognition of the two most civilized and cultured centres of Europe London and Paris? Verily it is easier to destroy than to build. The words “untheosophical” and “unbrotherly”

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are ever ringing in our ears; yet, truly theosophical acts and words are not to be found in too unreasonable a superabundance among those who use the reproof the oftener. However insignificant, and however limited the line of good deeds, the latter will have always more weight than empty and vainglorious talk, and will be theosophy whereas theories without any practical realisation are at best philosophy. Theosophy is an all-embracing Science; many are the ways leading to it, as numerous in fact as its definitions, which began by the sublime, during the day of Ammonius Saccas, and ended by the ridiculous—in Webster’s Dictionary. There is no reason why our critics should claim the right for themselves alone to know what is theosophy and to define it. There were theosophists and Theosophical Schools for the last 2,000 years, from Plato down to the mediaeval Alchemists, who knew the value of the term, it may be supposed. Therefore, when we are told that “the question for consideration is not whether the Theosophical Society is doing good, but whether it is doing that kind of good which is entitled to the name of Theosophy”—we turn round and ask: “And who is to be the judge in this mooted question?” We have heard of one of the greatest Theosophists who ever lived, who assured his audience that whosoever gave a cup of cold water to a little one in his (Theosophy’s) name, would have a greater reward than all the learned Scribes and Pharisees. “Woe to the world because of offences!” Belief in the Masters was never made an article of faith in the T.S. But for its Founders, the commands received from Them when it was established have ever been sacred. And this is what one of them wrote in a letter preserved to this day:

“Theosophy must not represent merely a collection of moral verities, a bundle of metaphysical Ethics epitomized in theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical, and has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless discussion . . . It has to find objective expression in an all-embracing code of life thoroughly impregnated with its spirit—the spirit of mutual tolerance, charity

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and love. Its followers have to set the example of a firmly outlined and as firmly applied morality before they get the right to point out, even in a spirit of kindness, the absence of a like ethic Unity and singleness of purpose in other associations and individuals. As said before—no Theosophist should blame a brother whether within or outside of the association, throw slur upon his actions or denounce him * lest he should himself lose the right of being considered a theosophist. Ever turn away your gaze from the imperfections of your neighbour and centre rather your attention upon your own shortcomings in order to correct them and become wiser . . . Show not the disparity between claim and action in another man but—whether he be brother or neighbour—rather help him in his arduous walk in life . . . The problem of true theosophy and its great mission is the working out of clear, unequivocal conceptions of ethic ideas and duties which would satisfy most and best the altruistic and right feeling in us; and the modelling of these conceptions for their adaptation into such forms of daily life where they may be applied with most equitableness . . . . Such is the common work in view for all who are willing to act on these principles. It is a laborious task and will require strenuous and persevering exertion, but it must lead you insensibly to progress and leave no room for any selfish aspirations outside the limits traced . . . . . Do not indulge in unbrotherly comparisons between the task accomplished by yourself and the work left undone by your neighbour or brother, in the field of Theosophy, as none is held to weed out a larger plot of ground than his strength and capacity will permit him . . . Do not be too severe on the merits or demerits of one who seeks admission among your ranks, as the truth about the actual state of the inner man can only be known to, and dealt with justly by KARMA alone. Even the simple presence amidst you of a well-intentioned and sympathising individual may help

–––––––––– * It is in consequence of this letter that Art. XII was adopted in Rules and a fear of lacking the charity prescribed, that led so often to neglect its enforcement. ––––––––––

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you magnetically . . . You are the Free-workers on the Domain of Truth, and as such, must leave no obstructions on the paths leading to it.” . . . [The letter closes with the following lines which have now become quite plain, as they give the key to the whole situation] . . . “The degrees of success or failure are the landmark we shall have to follow, as they will constitute the barriers placed with your own hands between yourselves and those whom you have asked to be your teachers. The nearer your approach to the goal contemplated—the shorter the distance between the student and the Master. . . .”

A complete answer is thus found in the above lines to the paper framed by the two Theosophists. Those who are now inclined to repudiate the Hand that traced it and feel ready to turn their backs upon the whole Past and the original programme of the T.S. are at liberty to do so. The Theosophical body is neither a Church nor a Sect and every individual opinion is entitled to a hearing. A Theosophist may progress and develop, and his views may outgrow those of the Founders, grow larger and broader in every direction, without for all that abandoning the fundamental soil upon which they were born and nurtured. It is only he who changes diametrically his opinions from one day to another and shifts his devotional views from white to black—who can be hardly trusted in his remarks and actions. But surely, this can never be the case of the two Theosophists who have now been answered . . .

Meanwhile, peace and fraternal good-will to all. H. P. BLAVATSKY, Corres. Secty T.S. Ostende, Oct. 3rd., 1886

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[For the benefit of the serious student, interested in the historical development of the Theosophical Movement, we append herewith the version of the Teacher’s letter, as published in Lucifer (Vol. I, January, 1888, pp. 344-46).]

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1924 and 1931

SOME WORDS ON DAILY LIFE

(WRITTEN BY A MASTER OF WISDOM)

It is divine philosophy alone, the spiritual and psychic blending of man with nature, which, by revealing the fundamental truths that lie hidden under the objects of sense and perception, can promote a spirit of unity and harmony in spite of the great diversities of conflicting creeds. Theosophy, therefore, expects and demands from the Fellows of the Society a great mutual toleration and charity for each other’s shortcomings, ungrudging mutual help in the search for truths in every department of nature—moral and physical. And this ethical standard must be unflinchingly applied to daily life.

Theosophy should not represent merely a collection of moral verities, a bundle of metaphysical ethics, epitomized in theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical; and it has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless digressions, in the sense of desultory orations and fine talk. Let every Theosophist only do his duty, that which he can and ought to do, and very soon the sum of human misery, within and around the areas of every Branch of your Society, will be found visibly diminished. Forget SELF in working for others—and the task will become an easy and a light one for you . . . . .

Do not set your pride in the appreciation and acknowledgment of that work by others. Why should any member of the Theosophical Society, striving to become a Theosophist, put any value upon his neighbours’ good or bad opinion of himself and his work, so long as he himself knows it to be useful and beneficent to other people? Human praise and enthusiasm are short-lived at best; the laugh of the scoffer and the condemnation of the indifferent looker-on are sure to follow, and generally to out-weigh the admiring praise of the friendly. Do not despise the opinion of the world, nor provoke it uselessly to unjust criticism. Remain rather as indifferent to the abuse as to the praise of those who can never know you as you really are, and who ought, therefore, to find you unmoved by either, and ever placing the approval or condemnation of your own Inner Self higher than that of the multitudes.

Those of you who would know yourselves in the spirit of truth, learn to live alone even amidst the great crowds which may sometimes surround you. Seek communion and intercourse only with the God within your own soul; heed only the praise or blame of that deity which can never be separated from your true self, as it is verily that God itself: called the HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS. Put without

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delay your good intentions into practice, never leaving a single one to remain only an intention—expecting, meanwhile, neither reward nor even acknowledgment for the good you may have done. Reward and acknowledgment are in yourself and inseparable from you, as it is your Inner Self alone which can appreciate them at their true degree and value. For each one of you contains within the precincts of his inner tabernacle the Supreme Court—prosecutor, defence, jury and judge—whose sentence is the only one without appeal; since none can know you better than you do yourself, when once you have learned to judge that Self by the never wavering light of the inner divinity—your higher Consciousness. Let, therefore, the masses, which can never know your true selves, condemn your outer selves according to their own false lights . . . . The majority of the public Areopagus is generally composed of self-appointed judges, who have never made a permanent deity of any idol save their own personalities—their lower selves; for those who try in their walk in life, to follow their inner light will never be found judging, far less condemning, those weaker than themselves. What does it matter then, whether the former condemn or praise, whether they humble you or exalt you on a pinnacle? They will never comprehend you one way or the other. They may make an idol of you, so long as they imagine you a faithful mirror of themselves on the pedestal or altar which they have reared for you, and while you amuse or benefit them. You cannot expect to be anything for them but a temporary fetish, succeeding another fetish just overthrown, and followed in your turn by another idol. Let, therefore, those who have created that idol destroy it whenever they like, casting it down with as little cause as they had for setting it up. Your Western Society can no more live without its Khalif of an hour than it can worship one for any longer period; and whenever it breaks an idol and then besmears it with mud, it is not the model, but the disfigured image created by its own foul fancy and which it has endowed with its own vices, that Society dethrones and breaks. Theosophy can only find objective expression in an all-embracing code of life, thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of mutual tolerance, charity, and brotherly love. Its Society, as a body, has a task before it which, unless performed with the utmost discretion, will cause the world of the indifferent and the selfish to rise up in arms against it. Theosophy has to fight intolerance, prejudice, ignorance and selfishness, hidden under the mantle of hypocrisy. It has to throw all the light it can from the torch of Truth, with which its servants are entrusted. It must do this without fear or hesitation, dreading neither reproof nor condemnation. Theosophy, through its mouthpiece, the Society, has to tell the TRUTH to the very face of LIE; to beard the tiger in its den, without thought or fear of evil consequences, and to set at defiance

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calumny and threats. As an Association, it has not only the right, but the duty to uncloak vice and do its best to redress wrongs, whether through the voice of its chosen lecturers or the printed word of its journals and publications—making its accusations, however, as impersonal as possible. But its Fellows, or Members, have individually no such right. Its followers have, first of all, to set the example of a firmly outlined and as firmly applied morality, before they obtain the right to point out, even in a spirit of kindness, the absence of a like ethic unity and singleness of purpose in other associations or individuals. No Theosophist should blame a brother, whether within or outside of the association; neither may he throw a slur upon another’s actions or denounce him, lest he himself lose the right to be considered as a Theosophist. For, as such, he has to turn away his gaze from the imperfections of his neighbour, and centre rather his attention upon his own shortcomings, in order to correct them and become wiser. Let him not show the disparity between claim and action in another, but, whether in the case of a brother, a neighbour, or simply a fellow man, let him rather ever help one weaker than himself on the arduous walk of life. The problem of true Theosophy and its great mission are, first, the working out of clear unequivocal conceptions of ethic ideas and duties, such as shall best and most fully satisfy the right and altruistic feelings in men; and second, the modelling of these conceptions for their adaptation into such forms of daily life, as shall offer a field where they may be applied with most equitableness. Such is the common work placed before all who are willing to act on these principles. It is a laborious task, and will require strenuous and persevering exertion; but it must lead you insensibly to progress, and leave you no room for any selfish aspirations outside the limits traced . . . . Do not indulge personally in unbrotherly comparison between the task accomplished by yourself and the work left undone by your neighbours or brothers. In the fields of Theosophy none is held to weed out a larger plot of ground than his strength and capacity will permit him. Do not be too severe on the merits or demerits of one who seeks admission among your ranks, as the truth about the actual state of the inner man can only be known to Karma, and can be dealt with justly by that all-seeing LAW alone. Even the simple presence amidst you of a well-intentioned and sympathising individual may help you magnetically. . . . . You are the free volunteer workers on the fields of Truth, and as such must leave no obstruction on the paths leading to that field...... The degree of success or failure are the landmarks the masters have to follow, as they will constitute the barriers placed with your own hands between yourselves and those whom you have asked to be your teachers. The nearer your approach to the goal contemplated—the shorter the distance between the student and the Master.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII November, 1886

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THEORIES ABOUT REINCARNATION AND SPIRITS

[The Path, New York, Vol. I, No. 8, November, 1886, pp. 232-245]

Over and over again the abstruse and mooted question of Rebirth or Reincarnation has crept out during the first ten years of the Theosophical Society’s existence. It has been alleged on prima facie evidence, that a notable discrepancy was found between statements made in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, pp. 351-52, and later teachings from the same pen and under the inspiration of the same master.*

In Isis, it was held,—reincarnation is denied. An occasional return only of “depraved spirits” is allowed. “Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, then, Isis. . . . allows only three cases—abortion, very early death, and idiocy—in which re-incarnation on this earth occurs.” (“C.C.M.” in Light, July 8, 1882.)

The charge was answered then and there as every one who will turn to The Theosophist of August, 1882, can see for himself. Nevertheless, the answer either failed to satisfy some readers or passed unnoticed. Leaving aside the strangeness of the assertion that reincarnation—i.e., the serial and periodical rebirth of every individual monad from pralaya to pralaya † is denied in the face of the fact that the doctrine is part and parcel and one of the fundamental features of Hinduism and Buddhism, the charge amounted virtually to this: the writer of the present, a professed admirer and student of Hindu philosophy, and as professed a follower of Buddhism years before Isis was

–––––––––– * See charge and answer in The Theosophist, Vol. III, August, 1882, pp. 288-89. [H.P.B.’s article entitled “Isis Unveiled and The Theosophist on Re-Incarnation,” published chronologically in the present series.— Compiler.] † The cycle of existence during the manvantara—period before and after the beginning and completion of which every such “monad” is absorbed and reabsorbed in the ONE soul, anima mundi. –––––––––––

GEORGE R. S. MEAD 1863-1933 Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 548.

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written, by rejecting reincarnation must necessarily reject KARMA likewise! For the latter is the very corner-stone of Esoteric philosophy and Eastern religions; it is the grand and one pillar on which hangs the whole philosophy of rebirths, and once the latter is denied, the whole doctrine of Karma falls into meaningless verbiage.

Nevertheless, the opponents without stopping to think of the evident “discrepancy” between charge and fact, accused a Buddhist by profession of faith of denying reincarnation hence also by implication—Karma. Adverse to wrangling with one who was a friend and undesirous at the time to enter upon a defence of details and internal evidence—a loss of time indeed—the writer answered merely with a few sentences. But it now becomes necessary to well define the doctrine. Other critics have taken the same line, and by misunderstanding the passages to that effect in Isis they have reached the same rather extraordinary conclusions.

To put an end to such useless controversies, it is proposed to explain the doctrine more clearly.

Although, in view of the later more minute renderings of the esoteric doctrines, it is quite immaterial what may have been written in Isis—an encyclopedia of occult subjects in which each of these is hardly sketched—let it be known at once, that the writer maintains the correctness of every word given out upon the subject in my earlier volumes. What was said in The Theosophist of August, 1882, may now be repeated here. The passage quoted from it may be, and is, most likely “incomplete, chaotic, vague, perhaps—clumsy, as many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a foreigner who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English language.” Nevertheless it is quite correct so far as that collateral feature of reincarnation is therein concerned.

I will now give extracts from Isis and proceed to explain every passage criticised, wherein it was said that “a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of

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reincarnation as distinct from metempsychosis”—would be then presented. Sentences now explained are in italics.

Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation of the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the astral monad which had been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident. Thus, in cases of abortion, of infants dying before a certain age, and of congenital and incurable idiocy, nature’s original design to produce a perfect human being, has been interrupted. Therefore, while the gross matter of each of these several entities is suffered to disperse itself at death, through the vast realm of being, the immortal spirit and astral monad of the individual—the latter having been set apart to animate a frame and the former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization—must try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence. (Vol. I, p. 351.)

Here the “astral monad” or body of the deceased personality say of John or Thomas—is meant. It is that which, in the teachings of the Esoteric philosophy of Hinduism, is known under its name of bhoot; in the Greek philosophy is called the simulacrum or umbra, and in all other philosophies worthy of the name is said, as taught in the former, to disappear after a certain period more or less prolonged in Kama-loka—the Limbus of the Roman Catholics, or Hades of the Greeks.* It is “a violation of the laws of harmony of nature,” though it be so decreed by those of Karma—every time that the astral monad, or the simulacrum of the personality—of John or Thomas—instead of running down to the end of its natural period of time in a body—finds itself (a) violently thrown out of it by either early death or accident or (b) is compelled in consequence of its unfinished task to reappear (i.e., the same astral body wedded to the same immortal monad) on earth again, in order to complete the unfinished

–––––––––– * Hades has surely never been meant for Hell. It was always the abode of the sorrowing shadows or astral bodies of the dead personalities. Western readers should remember Kama-loka is not Karma-loka, for Kama means desire, and Karma does not. ––––––––––

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task. Thus it “must try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence” or law. If reason has been so far developed as to become active and discriminative there is no * [immediate] reincarnation on this earth, for the three parts of the triune man have been united together, and he is capable of running the race. But when the new being has not passed beyond the condition of Monad, or when, as in the idiot, the trinity has not been completed [on earth and therefore cannot be so after death], the immortal spark which illuminates it, has to re-enter on the earthly plane as it was frustrated in its first attempt. Otherwise, the mortal or astral, and the immortal or divine, souls, could not progress in unison and pass onward to the-sphere above [Devachan].† Spirit follows a line parallel with that of matter; and the spiritual evolution goes hand in hand with the physical. [Vol. I, pp. 351-52.]

The Occult Doctrine teaches that:— (1) There is no immediate reincarnation on Earth for the Monad, as falsely taught by the Reincarnationist-Spiritists; nor is there any second incarnation at all for the “personal” or false Ego—the périsprit—save the exceptional cases mentioned. But that (a) there are re-births, or periodical reincarnations for the immortal Ego—(“Ego” during the cycle of re-births, and non-Ego, in Nirvana or Moksha when it becomes impersonal and absolute); for that Ego is the root of every new incarnation, the string on which are threaded, one after the other, the false personalities or illusive bodies called men, in which the Monad-Ego incarnates itself during the cycle of births; and (b) that such reincarnations take place not before 1,500, 2,000, and even 3,000 years of Devachanic life.

(2) That Manas—the seat of Jiv, that spark which runs the round of the cycle of births and rebirths with the Monad, from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara—is the real Ego. That (a) the Jiv follows the divine monad that gives it spiritual life and immortality into

–––––––––– * Had this word “immediate” been put at the time of publishing Isis between the two words “no” and “reincarnation” there would have been less room for dispute and controversy. † “By sphere above,” of course “Devachan” was meant. ––––––––––

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Devachan—that therefore, it can neither be reborn before its appointed period, nor reappear on Earth visibly or invisibly in the interim; and (b) that, unless the fruition, the spiritual aroma of the Manas—or all these highest aspirations and spiritual qualities and attributes that constitute the higher SELF of man become united to its monad, the latter becomes as Non-existent; since it is in esse “impersonal” and per se Ego-less, so to say, and gets its spiritual colouring or flavour of Ego-tism only from each Manas during incarnation and after it is disembodied, and separated from all its lower principles. (3) That the remaining four principles, or rather the—21—as they are composed of the terrestrial portion of Manas, of its Vehicle Kama-Rupa and Linga Sarira—the body dissolving immediately, and prana or the life principle along with it—that these principles having belonged to the false personality are unfit for Devachan. The latter is the state of Bliss, the reward for all the undeserved miseries of life,* and that which prompted man to sin, namely his terrestrial passionate nature can have no room in it. Therefore the [non]-reincarnating principles † are left behind in Kama-loka, firstly as a material residue, then later on as a reflection on the mirror of Astral light. Endowed with illusive action, to the day when having

–––––––––– * The reader must bear in mind that the esoteric teaching maintains that save in cases of wickedness when man’s nature attains the acme of Evil, and human terrestrial sin reaches Satanic universal character, so to say, as some Sorcerers do—there is no punishment for the majority of mankind after death. The law of retribution as Karma, waits man at the threshold of his new incarnation. Man is at best a wretched tool of evil, unceasingly forming new causes and circumstances. He is not always (if ever) responsible. Hence a period of rest and bliss in Devachan, with an utter temporary oblivion of all the miseries and sorrows of life. Avitchi is a spiritual state of the greatest misery and is only in store for those who have devoted consciously their lives to doing injury to others and have thus reached its highest spirituality of EVIL. † [See H.P.B.’s own correction of this part of the sentence in “An Important Correction” immediately following this article.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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gradually faded out they disappear, what is it but the Greek Eidôlon and the simulacrum of the Greek and Latin poets and classics? What reward or punishment can there be in that sphere of disembodied human entities for a fœtus or a human embryo which had not even time to breathe on this earth, still less an opportunity to exercise the divine faculties of the spirit? Or, for an irresponsible infant, whose senseless monad remaining dormant within the astral and physical casket, could as little prevent him from burning himself as another person to death? Or for one idiotic from birth, the number of whose cerebral circumvolutions is only from twenty to thirty percent of those of sane persons; and who therefore is irresponsible for either his disposition, acts, or the imperfections of his vagrant, half-developed intellect? (Isis, Vol. I, p. 352.) These are then, the “exceptions” spoken of in Isis, and the doctrine is maintained now as it was then. Moreover, there is no “discrepancy” but only incompleteness—hence, misconceptions arising from later teachings. Then again, there are several important mistakes in Isis which, as the plates of the work had been stereotyped were not corrected in subsequent editions.

One of such is on page 346, and another in connection with it and as a sequence on page 347. [Volume I.]

The discrepancy between the first portion of the statement and the last, ought to have suggested the idea of an evident mistake. It is addressed to the spiritists, reincarnationists who take the more than ambiguous words of Apuleius as a passage that corroborates their claims for their “spirits” and reincarnation. Let the reader judge * whether Apuleius does not justify rather our assertions. We are charged with denying reincarnation and this is what we said there and then in Isis!

–––––––––– * Says Apuleius “The soul is born in this world upon leaving the soul of the world (anima mundi) in which her existence precedes the one we all know (on earth). Thus, the Gods who consider her proceedings in all the phases of various existences and as a whole, punish her sometimes for sins committed during an anterior life. She dies when she separates herself from a body in which she crossed this life as in a frail bark. And this is, if I mistake not, the secret meaning of the tumulary inscription, so simple for the initiate: ––––––––––

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This philosophy teaches that nature never leaves her work unfinished; if baffled at the first attempt, she tries again. When she evolves a human embryo, the intention is that a man shall be perfected—physically, intellectually, and spiritually. His body is to grow, mature, wear out, and die; his mind unfold, ripen, and be harmoniously balanced; his divine spirit illuminate and blend easily with the inner man. No human being completes its grand cycle, or the “circle of necessity,” until all these are accomplished. As the laggards in a race struggle and plod in their first quarter while the victor darts past the goal, so, in the race of immortality, some souls outspeed all the rest and reach the end, while their myriad competitors are toiling under the load of matter, close to the starting-point. Some unfortunates fall out entirely, and lose all chance of the prize; some retrace their steps and begin again. [Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 345-46.]

Clear enough this, one should say. Nature baffled tries again. No one can pass out of this world (our earth), without becoming perfected “physically, morally and spiritually.” How can this be done, unless there is a series of rebirths required for the necessary perfection in each department—to evolute in the “circle of necessity,” can surely never be found in one human life; and yet

–––––––––– ‘To the Gods manes who lived.’ But this kind of death does not annihilate the soul, it only transforms (one portion of) it into a lemure. ‘Lemures’ are the manes, or ghosts, which we know under the name lares. When they keep away and show us a beneficent protection, we honour in them the protecting divinities of the family hearth; but if their crimes sentence them to err, we call them larvae. They become a plague for the wicked, and the vain terror of the good.” (“Du Dieu de Socrate,” Apul. class., pp. 143-45.) [Considerable uncertainty exists in connection with the above quotation. H.P.B. appears to quote from the edition of Désiré Nisard (1806-88), entitled: Pétrone, Apulée, Aulu-Gelle. Œuvres complètes, etc. (Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie, Libraires, 1882), which contains both the Latin text and a French translation of these Classics. She seems to translate into English certain passages from Apuleius’ De Deo Socratis Liber (On the God of Socrates). However, careful checking has failed to detect such passages either in the Latin or the French texts. The pages indicated above contain approximately these teachings, from which H.P.B. most probably has deduced certain facts, summarizing their contents, and introducing a few ideas of her own. With slight variations, mostly of punctuation and of italics, the same passage is quoted by H.P.B. in her Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 345.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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this sentence is followed without any break by the following parenthetical statement: “This is what the Hindu dreads above all things—transmigration and reincarnation; only on other and inferior planets, never on this one”!!!

The last “sentence” is a fatal mistake and one to which the writer pleads “not guilty.” It is evidently the blunder of some “reader” who had no idea of Hindu philosophy and who was led into a subsequent mistake on the next page, wherein the unfortunate word “planet” is put for cycle. Isis was hardly, if ever, looked into after its publication by its writer, who had other work to do; otherwise there would have been an apology and a page pointing to the errata and the sentence made to run: “The Hindu dreads transmigration in other inferior forms, on this planet.” * This would have dove-tailed with the preceding sentence, and would show a fact, as the Hindu exoteric views allow him to believe and fear the possibility of reincarnation—human and animal in turn by jumps, from man to beast and even a plant—and vice versa; whereas esoteric philosophy teaches that nature never proceeding backward in her evolutionary progress, once that man has evoluted from every kind of lower forms—the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms—into the human form, he can never become an animal except morally, hence—metaphorically. Human incarnation is a cyclic necessity, and law; and no Hindu dreads it—however much he may deplore the necessity. And this law and the periodical recurrence of man’s rebirth is shown on the same page (346) and in the same unbroken paragraph, where it is closed by saying that:

But there is a way to avoid it, and Buddha taught it in his doctrine of poverty, restriction of the senses, perfect indifference to

–––––––––– * [Substantially the same explanation was given by H.P.B. at a later date, namely, in Lucifer, Vol. III, No. 18, February, 1889, pp. 527-28,. in a footnote she appended to a letter from J. H. Mitalmier, entitled “The Dirge for the Dead.” It is to be found in its natural chronological sequence in the present series.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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the objects of this earthly vale of tears, freedom from passion, and frequent intercommunication with the Atma—soul-contemplation. The cause of reincarnation is ignorance of our senses, and the idea that there is any reality in the world, anything except abstract existence.* From the organs of sense comes the “hallucination” we call contact; “from contact, desire; from desire, sensation (which also is a deception of our body); from sensation, the cleaving to existing bodies; from this cleaving, reproduction; and from reproduction, disease, decay, and death.” This ought to settle the question and show there must have been some carelessly unnoticed mistake and if this is not sufficient, there is something else to demonstrate it, for it is [said] further on:

Thus, like the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and birth, the moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing objects, while the instrumental cause is karma (the power which controls the universe, prompting it to activity), merit and demerit. “It is, therefore, the great desire of all beings who would be released from the sorrows of successive birth, to seek the destruction of the moral cause, the cleaving to existing objects, or evil desire.” They, in whom evil desire is entirely destroyed, are called Arhats. Freedom from evil desire insures the possession of a miraculous power. At his death, the Arhat is never reincarnated; he invariably attains Nirvana—a word, by the bye, falsely interpreted by the Christian scholars and skeptical commentators. Nirvana is the world of cause, in which all deceptive effects or delusions of our senses disappear. Nirvana is the highest attainable sphere. The pitris (the pre-Adamic spirits) are considered as reincarnated, by the Buddhistic philosopher, though in a degree far superior to that of the man of earth. Do they not die in their turn? Do not their astral bodies suffer and rejoice, and feel the same curse of illusionary feelings as when embodied? [Ibid, Vol. I, pp. 346-47.]

And just after this we are again made to say of Buddha and his Doctrine of “Merit and Demerit,” or Karma:

But, this former life believed in by the Buddhists, is not a life on this planet, for, more than any other people, the Buddhistical philosopher appreciated the great doctrine of cycles. Correct “life on this planet” by “life in the same cycle,” and you will have the correct reading: for what would

–––––––––– * “The cause of reincarnation is ignorance”—therefore there is “reincarnation” once the writer explained the causes of it. ––––––––––

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have appreciation of “the great doctrine of cycles” to do with Buddha’s philosophy, had the great sage believed but in one short life on this Earth and in the same cycle? But to return to the real theory of reincarnation as in the esoteric teaching and its unlucky rendering in Isis.

Thus, what was really meant therein, was that, the principle which does not reincarnate save the exceptions pointed out—is the false personality, the illusive human Entity defined and individualized during this short life of ours, under some specific form and name; but that which does and has to reincarnate nolens volens under the unflinching, stern rule of Karmic law—is the real EGO. This confusing of the real immortal Ego in man, with the false and ephemeral personalities it inhabits during its Manvantaric progress, lies at the root of every such misunderstanding. Now what is the one, and what is the other? The first group is—

1. The immortal Spirit—sexless, formless (arupa), an emanation from the One universal BREATH.

2. Its Vehicle—the divine Soul—called the “Immortal Ego,” the “Divine monad,” etc., etc., which by accretions from Manas in which burns the ever-existing Jiv—the undying spark—adds to itself at the close of each incarnation the essence of that individuality that was, the aroma of the culled flower that is no more.

What is the false personality? It is that bundle of desires, aspirations, affection and hatred, in short of action, manifested by a human being on this earth during one incarnation and under the form of one personality.* –––––––––– * A proof how our theosophical teachings have taken root in every class of Society and even in English literature may be seen by reading Mr. Norman Pearson’s article “Before Birth” in The Nineteenth Century for September, 1886. Therein, theosophical ideas and teachings are speculated upon without acknowledgment or the smallest reference to theosophy, and among others, we see with regard to the author’s theories on the Ego, the following: “How much then of the individual personality is supposed to go to heaven or to hell? ––––––––––

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Certainly it is not all this, which as a fact for us, the deluded, material, and materially thinking lot—is Mr. So and So, or Mrs. somebody else—that remains immortal, or is ever reborn.

All that bundle of Egotism, that apparent and evanescent “I,” disappears after death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor’s body, after he leaves the theatre and goes to bed. That actor re-becomes at once the same “John Smith” or Gray, he was from his birth and is no longer the Othello or Hamlet that he had represented for a few hours. Nothing remains now of that “bundle” to go to the next incarnation, except the seed for future Karma that Manas may have united to its immortal group, to form with it—the disembodied Higher Self in “Devachan.” As to the four lower principles, that which becomes of them is found in most classics, from which we mean to quote at length for our defence. The doctrine of the périsprit, the “false personality,” or the remains of the deceased under their

–––––––––– Does the whole of the mental equipment, good and bad, noble qualities and unholy passions, follow the soul to its hereafter? Surely not. But if not, and something has to be stripped off, how and where are we to draw the line? If, on the other hand, the soul is something distinct from all our mental equipment except the sense of self, are we not confronted by the incomprehensible notion of a personality without any attributes?” To this query the author answers as any true theosophist would: “. . . the difficulties of the question really spring from a misconception of the true nature of these attributes. The components of our mental equipment—appetites, aversions, feelings, tastes, and qualities generally—are not absolute but relative existences. . . . Hunger and thirst, for instance, are states of consciousness which arise in response to the stimuli of physical necessities . . . . They are not inherent and necessary elements of the soul. . . . . and will disappear or become modified, etc.” (pp. 356-57). In other words the theosophical doctrine is adopted. Atma and Buddhi having culled off the Manas the aroma of the personality or human soul—go into Devachan; while the lower principles, the astral simulacrum or false personality, void of its Divine monad or spirit, will remain in the Kamaloka—the “Summerland.” –––––––––––

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astral form—fading out to disappear in time, is terribly distasteful to the spiritualists, who insist upon confusing the temporary with the immortal EGO. Unfortunately for them and happily for us, it is not the modern Occultists who have invented the doctrine. They are on their defence. And they prove what they say, i.e., that no “personality” has ever yet been “reincarnated on the same planet” (our earth, this once there is no mistake) save in the three exceptional cases above cited. Adding to these a fourth case, which is the deliberate, conscious act of adeptship; and that such an astral body belongs neither to the body nor the soul, still less to the immortal spirit of man, the following is brought forward and proofs cited.

Before one brings out on the strength of undeniable manifestations, theories as to what produces them and claims at once on prima facie evidence that it is the spirits of the departed mortals that re-visit us, it behooves one to first study what antiquity has declared upon the subject. Ghosts and apparitions, materialized and semi-material “SPIRITS” have not originated with Allan Kardec, nor at Rochester. If those beings whose invariable habit it is to give themselves out for souls and the phantoms of the dead, choose to do so and succeed, it is only because the cautious philosophy of old is now replaced by an a priori conceit, and unproven assumptions. The first question is to be settled—“Have spirits any kind of substance to clothe themselves with?” Answer: That which is now called périsprit in France, and a “materialized Form” in England and America, was called in days of old peri-psyche, and peri-nous, hence was well known to the old Greeks. Have they a body whether gaseous, fluidic, ethereal, material or semi-material? No; we say this on the authority of the occult teachings the world over. For with the Hindus atma or spirit is Arupa (bodiless), and with the Greeks also. Even in the Roman Catholic Church the angels of Light as those of Darkness are absolutely incorporeal: “meri spiritus, omnes corporis expertes” and in the words of the “SECRET DOCTRINE,” primordial. Emanations of the

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undifferentiated Principle, the Dhyan Chohans of the ONE (First) category or pure Spiritual Essence, are formed of the Spirit of the one Element; the second category of [or?] the second Emanation of the Soul of the Elements; the third have a “mind body” to which they are not subject, but that they can assume and govern as a body, subject to them, pliant to their will in form and substance. Parting from this (third) category, they (the spirits, angels, Devas or Dhyan Chohans) have BODIES, the first rupa group of which is composed of one element Ether; the second, of two—ether and fire; the third, of three—Ether, fire and water; the fourth, of four—Ether, air, fire and water. Then comes man, who, besides the four elements, has the fifth that predominates in him—Earth: therefore he suffers. Of the Angels, as said by St. Augustine and Peter Lombard, their bodies are made to act not to suffer. It is earth and water, humor et humus, that gives an aptitude for suffering and passivity, ad patientiam, and Ether and Fire for action. The spirits or human monads, belonging to the first, or undifferentiated essence, are thus incorporeal; but their third principle (or the human Fifth—Manas) can in conjunction with its vehicle become Kama rupa and Mayavi rupa—body of desire or “illusion body.” After death, the best, noblest, purest qualities of Manas or the human soul, ascending along with the divine Monad into Devachan, whence no one emerges from or returns, except at the time of reincarnation—what is that then which appears under the double mask of the spiritual Ego or soul of the departed individual? The Kama rupa element with the help of elementals. For we are taught that those spiritual beings that can assume a form at will and appear, i.e., make themselves objective and even tangible—are the angels alone (the Dhyan Chohans) and the nirmanakaya * of the adepts, whose spirits are clothed in

–––––––––– * Nirmanakaya is the name given to the astral forms (in their completeness) of adepts, who have progressed too high on the path of knowledge and absolute truth, to go into the state of Devachan; and have on the other hand, deliberately refused the bliss of nirvana, in order to help Humanity by invisibly guiding and helping on the ––––––––––

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sublime matter. The astral bodies—the remnants and dregs of a mortal being which has been disembodied, when they do appear, are not the individuals they claim to be, but only their simulacra. And such was the belief of the whole of antiquity, from Homer to Swedenborg; from the third race down to our own day.

More than one devoted spiritualist has hitherto quoted Paul as corroborating his claim that spirits do and can appear. “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body,” etc., etc. (I Cor., xv, 44); but one has only to study closer the verses preceding and following the one quoted, to perceive that what St. Paul meant was quite different from the sense claimed for it. Surely there is a spiritual body, but it is not identical with the astral form contained in the “natural” man. The “spiritual” is formed only by our individuality unclothed and transformed after death; for the apostle takes care to explain in verses 51-53: “sed non omnes immutabimur.” “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed . . . For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

But this is no proof except for the Christians. Let us see what the old Egyptians and the Neo-platonists—both “theurgists” par excellence, thought on the subject: They divided man into three principal groups subdivided into principles as we do: pure immortal spirit; the “Spectral Soul” (a luminous phantom) and the gross material body. Apart from the latter which was considered as the terrestrial shell, these groups were divided into six principles: (1) Kha, “vital body”; (2) Khaba, “astral form,” or shadow; (3) Khou, “animal soul”; (4) Akh, “terrestrial intelligence”; (5) Sa, “the divine soul” (or Buddhi); and (6) Sah or mummy, the functions of which began after death. Osiris was the highest uncreated spirit, for

–––––––––– same path of progress elect men. But these astrals are not empty shells, but complete monads made up of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th principles. There is another order of nirmanakaya, however, of which much will be said in The Secret Doctrine.—H.P.B. ––––––––––

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it was, in one sense, a generic name, every man becoming after his translation Osirified, i.e., absorbed into Osiris-Sun or into the glorious divine state. It was Khou, with the lower portions of Akh or Kama rupa with the additions of the dregs of Manas remaining all behind in the astral light of our atmosphere—that formed the counterparts of the terrible and so much dreaded bhoots of the Hindus (our “elementaries”). This is seen in the rendering made of the so-called “Harris Papyrus on Magic” (Papyrus magique Harris, translated by Chabas) who calls them Kouey or Khou, and explains that according to the hieroglyphics they were called Khou or the “revivified dead,” the “resurrected shadows.” *

When it was said of a person that he “had a Khou” it meant that he was possessed by a “Spirit.” There were two kinds of Khous—the justified ones—who after living for a short time a second life (nam onh) faded out, disappeared; and those Khous who were condemned to wandering without rest in darkness after dying for a second time—mut, em, nam—and who were called the H’ou metre (“second time dead”) which did not prevent them from clinging to a vicarious life after the manner of Vampires. How dreaded they were is explained in our Appendices on “Egyptian Magic” and “Chinese Spirits” (Secret Doctrine).† They were exorcised by Egyptian priests as

–––––––––– * Placing these parallel with the division in esoteric teaching we see that (1) Osiris is Atma; (2) Sa is Buddhi; (3) Akh is Manas; (4) Khou is Kama-rupa, the seat of terrestrial desires; (5) Khaba is Linga Sarira; (6) Kha is Pranatma (vital principle); (7) Sah is mummy or body.

† [This is a very interesting reference. It should be remembered that H.P.B. does not mean her completed work published in 1888 under the title of The Secret Doctrine, but merely the First Draft, a portion of which she sent to Adyar in 1885, for T. Subba Row to edit and comment upon. It appears, however, that the two Appendices she mentions here did not get incorporated into the final text of The Secret Doctrine.

The essay on “Chinese Spirits” was published in Lucifer (Vol. IX, No. 51, November, 1891, pp. 182-87) after H.P.B.’s passing, while ––––––––––

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the evil spirit is exorcised by the Roman Catholic curé; or again the Chinese houen, identical with the Khou and the “Elementary,” as also with the lares or larvae—a word derived from the former by Festus, the grammarian; who explains that they were “the shadows of the dead who gave no rest in the house they were in either to the Masters or the servants.” These creatures when evoked during theurgic, and especially necromantic rites, were regarded, and are so regarded still, in China—as neither the Spirit, Soul nor anything belonging to the deceased personality they represented, but simply, as his reflection —simulacrum. “The human soul,” says Apuleius, “is an immortal God” [Buddhi] which nevertheless has his beginning. When

–––––––––– her most valuable and scholarly essay on “Egyptian Magic” was incorporated by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead into the volume which they published under the title of “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III.” (pp. 241-57 therein.) It is easy to show that H.P.B. never intended this essay to be a part of her planned Volume III. Writing an article for The Theosophist, while at Ostende, in July, 1886 (published in Vol. VIII, No. 85, October, 1886, pp. 1-8), on “Ancient Magic in Modern Science,” she closes it with the following paragraph: “Some twenty years ago, archæology was enriched with a very curious Egyptian document giving the views of that ancient religion upon the subject of ghosts (manes) and magic in general. It is called the “Harris papyrus on Magic “ (Papyrus Magique). It is extremely curious in its bearing upon the esoteric teachings of Occult Theosophy, and is very suggestive. It is left for our next article—on MAGIC.” The Papyrus referred to in this closing paragraph is precisely the main subject-matter of her essay on “Egyptian Magic,” as published in “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III.” This essay, however, was not published in The Theosophist, or in any other journal at the time. It is quite possible that in October, 1886, when H.P.B., still at Ostende, was writing for The Path her present essay on “Reincarnation and Spirits,” she had decided to use “Egyptian Magic” as one of the Appendices to The Secret Doctrine, instead of running it as an article in a magazine. The important point is that “Egyptian Magic” was originally intended to be an article and was already written as early as October, 1886, and possibly several months earlier.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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death rids it [the Soul], from its earthly corporeal organism, it is called lemure. There are among the latter not a few which are beneficent, and which become the gods or demons of the family, i.e., its domestic gods: in which case they are called lares. But they are vilified and spoken of as larvae when, sentenced by fate to wander about, they spread around them evil and plagues (Inane terriculamentum bonis hominibus, ceterum noxium malis); or if their real nature is doubtful they are referred to as simply manes (Apuleius, Du Dieu de Socrate, pp. 142-143, edit. Nizard).* Listen to Iamblichus, Proclus, Porphyry Psellus and to dozens of other writers on these mystic subjects.

The Magi of Chaldea believed and taught that the celestial or divine soul would participate in the bliss of eternal light, while the animal or sensuous soul would, if good, rapidly dissolve, and if wicked, go on wandering about in the Earth’s sphere. In this case, “it [the soul] assumes at times the forms of various human phantoms and even those of animals.” The same was said of the Eidôlon of the Greeks, and of their Nephesh by the Rabbis (See Histoire et Traité des Sciences Occultes, Count de Résie,

–––––––––– * [This passage, just as the one previously quoted, is not an actual quotation, but rather a summary of certain ideas. In contradistinction to the passage quoted earlier, this one is much closer, however, to the Latin original text which runs as follows:

“Est et secundo significatu species daemonum, animus humanus emeritis stipendiis vitae corpori suo abjurans; hunc vetere latina lingua reperio Lemurem dictitatum. Ex hisce ergo Lemuribus, qui posterorum suorum curam sortitus, placato et quieto nomine domum possidet, Lar dicitur familiaris; qui vero ob adversa vitae merita, nullis bonis sedibus, incerta vagatione, ceu quodam exsilio, punitur, inane terriculamentum bonis hominibus, ceterum noxium malis, id genus plerique Larvae perhibent. Quum vero incertum est, quae cuique eorum sortitio evenerit, utrum Lar sit, an Larva; nomine Manem deum nuncupant; scilicet honoris gratia dei vocabulum additum est.”—Apuleius, De Deo Socratis, ed. of Nizard, pp. 142-48. —Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Vol. II, p. 598).* All the Illuminati of the middle ages tell us of our astral Soul, the reflection of the dead or his spectre. At Natal death (birth) the pure spirit remains attached to the intermediate and luminous body but as soon as its lower form (the physical body) is dead, the former ascends heavenward, and the latter descends into the nether worlds, or the Kama loka.

Homer shows us the body of Patroclus—the true image of the terrestrial body lying killed by Hector—rising in its spiritual form, and Lucretius shows old Ennius representing Homer himself, shedding bitter tears, amidst the shadows and the human simulacra on the shores of Acherusia “where live neither our bodies nor our souls, but only our images.” etsi praeterea tamen esse Acherusia templa Ennius aeternis exponit versibus edens, quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra, sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris; unde sibi exortam semper florentis Homeri commemorat speciem lacrimas effundere salsas coepisse et rerum naturam expandere dictis. [De Rerum Natura, Book I, 120-126]†

–––––––––– * [The original French text of this passage is as follows:

“Ils croyaient également que si l’âme céleste avait mal vécu dans son corps, l’une et l’autre demeuraient attachées à la matière terrestre, sans pouvoir aspirer à parvenir jamais au séjour de la lumière, et qu’elles revêtissaient souvent, pour ce montrer sur la terre, la forme de divers fantômes et des simulacres d’animaux. Il est facile de reconnaître, dans cette croyance orientale, l’eidôlon des Grecs er la nephesh des rabbins thalmudistes.”—Histoire et Traité des Sciences Occultes, ou examen des croyances populaires sur les êtres surnaturelles, la magie, etc. 2 vol. Paris, 1857. 8vo. (British Meseum, 8630. g. 81.). Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s.v. RÉSIE.—Compiler.] † [“And yet with all this Ennius sets forth that there are Acherusian realms, explaining it in immortal verses; therein neither our souls nor our bodies endure, but only certain wondrous and pallid simulacra (similitudes). From these realms the likeness of ever-living Homer arose before him and, shedding salt tears, began to unfold in words the nature of things.”—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Virgil called it imago, “image,” and in the Odyssey (Book XI) the author refers to it as the type, the model, and at the same time the copy of the body; since Telemachus will not recognize Ulysses and seeks to drive him off by saying—“No, thou art not my father; thou art a demon,—trying to seduce me!” (Odyssey, Book XVI, 194-95.) “Latins do not lack significant proper names to designate the varieties of their demons; and thus they called them in turn, lares, lemures, genii and manes.” Cicero, in translating Plato’s Timaeus, translates the word daimones by lares; and Festus the grammarian, explains that the inferior or lower gods were the souls of men, making a difference between the two as Homer did, and between anima bruta and anima divina (animal and divine souls). Plutarch (in proble. Rom.) * makes the lares preside and inhabit the (haunted) houses, and calls them cruel, exacting, inquisitive, etc., etc. Festus thinks that there are good and bad ones among the lares. For he calls them at one time praestites as they gave occasionally and watched over things carefully (direct apports), and at another—hostileos.† “However it may be,” says in his queer old French Le Loyer, “they are no better than our devils, who, if they do appear helping sometimes men, and presenting them with property, it is only to hurt them the better and the more later on. Lemures are also devils and larvae for they appear at night in various human and animal forms, but still more frequently with features that THEY borrow

–––––––––– * [This reference is quite uncertain. Most likely Plutarch’s Quaestiones Romanae (Roman Questions) are meant. In Section xli brief information is given regarding the lares, as guardians of the house, but in somewhat different terms than those employed by H.P.B.—Compiler.]

† Because they drove the enemies away.

[This reference and the preceding quote from Festus could not be verified owing to uncertainties connected with the writings of Festus. See Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s. v. FESTUS.—Comp.] ––––––––––

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from dead men” (Livres des Spectres, I, chap. ii, pp. 15-16).*

After this little honour rendered to his Christian preconceptions, that see Satan everywhere, Le Loyer speaks like an Occultist, and a very erudite one too. “It is quite certain that the genii and none other had mission to watch over every newly born man, and that they were called genii, as says Censorinus, because they had in their charge our race, and not only they presided over every mortal being but over whole generations and tribes, being the genii of the people.” †

–––––––––– * [The “queer old French” of Le Loyer from which H.P.B. translates runs as follows:

“. . . . Quoy qu’il en foit, fi eft-ce qu’ils n’eftoient autres que Diables, lefquels fi quelquefois ils femblent ayder aux hommes & leur apporter quelque bien, fi eft-ce que c’eft pour apres leur nuire d’auantaige tant interieurement en leur ame & confcience, qu’exterieurement en leurs corps & biens. Les Lemures font auffi Diables & Larues nuifantes qui apparoiffent de nuict en forme de diuerfes beftes, & le plus souuent en figure d’hommes morts.”

H.P.B. quotes from a very rare work of Pierre Le Loyer, sieur de la Brosse (1550-1634), entitled IIII Livres des Spectres ov Apparitions et Visions d’Esprits, Anges et Demons fe monf trans fenfiblement aux hommes. Angers, 1586. 4to. (British Museum, 719. f. 6.).—Compiler.] † [This passage is from pages 16-17: “Car il eft bien certain que les Genies, & non autres, auoient cefte charge de garder.châque homme qui venoit au monde & fe nommoient Genies ainfi que dict Cenforin, parce qu’ils auoient foin de noftre generation, ou qu’ils aftoient nez auecques nous, ou bien qu’ils nous receuoient & gardoient apres que nous eftions engendrez. Et non feulement les Genies prefidoient à châque perfonne particuliere, ains il y auoit des Genies des peuples...... ” Le Loyer refers to Censorinus’ De die natali, iii, wherein this Roman writer of the third century A.D. says: “Genius quid sit? et unde dicatur? Genius est deus, cujus in tutela, ut quisque natus est, vivit. Hic, sive quod, ut genamur, curat, sive quod una genitur nobiscum; sive etiam, quod nos genitos suscipit ac tuetur; certe a genendo Genius adpellatur. Eundem esse Genium et Larem, multi veteres memoriae prodiderunt: in queis etiam Granius Flaccus in libro, quem ad Caesarem de Indigitamentis scriptum

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The idea of guardian angels of men, races, localities, cities, and nations, was taken by the Roman Catholics from the pre-Christian occultists and pagans. Symmachus (Epistol., lib. X) writes: “As souls are given to those who are born, so genii are distributed to the nations. Every city had its protecting genius, to whom the people sacrificed.”* There is more than one inscription found that reads: Genio civitatis—“to the genius of the city.” Only the ancient profane never seemed sure any more than the modern whether an apparition was the eidôlon of a relative or the genius of the locality. Aeneas while celebrating the anniversary of the name of his father Anchises, seeing a serpent crawling on his tomb knew not whether that was the genius of his father or the genius of

–––––––––– reliquit. Hunc in nos maximam, quia immo omnem habere potestatem creditum est. . . . . ” “What is the Genius and whence its name? The Genius is a god under whose protection every one of us is placed from birth. This god—either because he presides over our birth, or because he is born with us, or again because he takes us under his guardianship as soon as we are engendered—is termed Genius from the word (genere) which means to engender. The Genius and the Lar are one and the same god, according to many ancient authors. This is also the opinion of Granius Flaccus, in his work On the Sacred Books of the Pontifs, which he addressed to Caesar. It is said that our Genius has over us a very great, and possibly even a complete power. . . .”

Censorinus adds: “The Genius is such a faithful and vigilant guardian for each one of us, that he does not leave us for a single instant; he received us as we came forth from the womb of our mother, and he will accompany us to the very last day of our existence.” —Compiler.]

* [This passage is from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, scholar, statesman and orator of the Fourth Century, not from Pope Symmachus, as believed by some. The Latin text is: “. . . . varios custodes urbibus cultus mens divina distribuit; ut animae nascentibus, ita populis fatalis genii dividuntur, accedit utilitas, quae maxima homini deos adserit. . . . .” (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Ed. by Otto Seeck. Ser. I, Auct. Antiq., Vol. 6, Part 1, pp. 281-82. Berlin: Weidemann, 1883).—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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the place (Virgil, Aeneid, V, 84-96). The manes * were numbered and divided between good and bad; those that were sinister, and that Virgil calls numina larva, were appeased by sacrifices that they should commit no mischief, such as sending bad dreams to those who despised them, etc. Tibullus shows [this] by his line: ne tibi neglecti mittant mala somnia manes. (Eleg., II, vi, 37) †

“Pagans thought that the lower Souls were transformed after death into diabolical aerial spirit” (Le Loyer, op. cit.., p. 22) ‡

The term Eteroprosopos when divided into its several component words will yield a whole sentence, “an other than I under the features of my person.”

–––––––––– * From manus, “good,” an antiphrasis, as Festus explains.

† [The complete passage from this poem of Tibullus (Elegiae II, vi, 36-40) is as follows: illius ut verbis, sis mihi lento veto, ne tibi neglecti mittant mala somnia manes, maestaque sopitae stet soror ante torum, qualis ab excelsa praeceps delapsa fenestra venit ad infernos sanguinolenta lacus.

J. P. Postgate (Loeb Classical Library) translates this in the following manner:

“In her name I bid thee, be not cold to me, lest the slightest spirit send thee evil dreams and in thy slumber thy mournful sister stand before thy bed, such as she was, when from the high casement she fell headlong down and passed blood-spattered to the lakes below.” —Compiler.]

‡ [“ . . . . que les Payens croioiet que les ames fe tranfformoient en Efprits aeriens and Diaboliques . . . .”—Comp.] ––––––––––

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It is to this terrestrial principle, the eidôlon, the larva, the bhoot—call it by whatever name—that reincarnation was refused in Isis.*

The doctrines of Theosophy are simply the faithful echoes of Antiquity. Man is a Unity only at his origin and at his end. All the Spirits, all the Souls, gods and demons emanate from and have for their root-principle the SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE says Porphyry (De Sacrifice).† Not a philosopher of any notoriety who did not believe (1) in reincarnation (metempsychosis), (2) in the plurality of principles in man, or that man had two Souls of separate and quite different natures; one perishable, the Astral Soul, the other incorruptible and immortal; and (3) that the former was not the man whom it represented—“neither his spirit nor his body, but his reflection, at best.” This was taught by Brahmans, Buddhists, Hebrews, Greeks, Egyptians, and Chaldeans; by the post-diluvian heirs of the pre-diluvian Wisdom, by Pythagoras and Socrates, Clemens Alexandrinus, Synesius, and Origen, the oldest Greek poets as much as the Gnostics, whom Gibbon shows as the most refined, learned and enlightened men of all ages (See The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xv). But the rabble was the same in every age: superstitious, self-opinionated, materializing every most spiritual and noble idealistic conception and dragging it down to its own low level, and––ever adverse to philosophy.

–––––––––– * [On] page 12, Vol. I, of Isis Unveiled belief in reincarnation is asserted from the very beginning, as forming part and parcel of universal beliefs. “Metempsychosis” (or transmigration of souls) and reincarnation being after all the same thing.

† [Porphyry’s text entitled De sacrificio et magia appears to be a mediaeval condensation of Book II of his De abstinentia carnis (On Abstinence from Animal Food). This condensed version in its Latin form is appended to Iamblichus’ De mysteriis Egyptiorum, etc., Venice, 1497, and London, 1552, 1570, 1577. Thomas Taylor has translated the complete text of De abstinentia in his Select Works of Porphyry, London, 1823, wherein occurs, in Book II, 37, a passage somewhat similar to what H. P. B. mentions in the text above.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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But all this does not interfere with that fact, that our “fifth Race” man, analyzed esoterically as a septenary creature, was ever exoterically recognized as mundane, sub-mundane, terrestrial and supra-mundane, Ovid graphically describing him as—

Bis duo sunt hominis; manes, caro, spintus, umbra Quatuor ista loca bis duo suscipiunt. Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra, Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.*

OSTENDE, Oct.,1886.

––––––––––

–––––––––– * [In her essay on “Chinese Spirits,” immediately following the present article, H. P. B. quotes these verses again, attributing them to a “Latin poet.” They are also quoted, in a somewhat incomplete form, in Isis Unveiled, I, 362, where they are attributed to Lucretius who is supposed to portray old Ennius as saying these words. The two last lines only occur again in Isis Unveiled, I, 37, where they are attributed to Ovid again. In spite of an exhaustive search having been made, no such verses have been found either in Lucretius or in Ovid.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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AN IMPORTANT CORRECTION [The Path (New York), Vol. I., No. 10, January, 1887, p. 320] TO ALL THE READERS OF THE PATH. In the November number of The Path in my article “Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits,” the entire batch of elaborate arguments is upset and made to fall flat owing to the mistake of either copyist or printer. On page 235, the last paragraph is made to begin with these words: “Therefore the reincarnating principles are left behind in Kama-loka, etc.,” whereas it ought to read “Therefore the NON-reincarnating principles (the false personality) are left behind in Kama-loka, etc.” a statement fully corroborated by what follows, since it is stated that those principles fade out and disappear. There seems to be some fatality attending this question. The spiritualists will not fail to see in it the guiding hand of their dear departed ones from “Summerland”; and I am inclined to share that belief with them in so far that there must be some mischievous spook between me and the printing of my articles. Unless immediately corrected and attention drawn to it, this error is one which is sure to be quoted some day against me and called a contradiction. Yours truly, H. P. BLAVATSKY. November 20th, 1886. NOTE.—The MS. for the article referred to was written out by some one for Mme. Blavatsky and forwarded to us as it was printed, and it is quite evident that the error was the copyist’s, and not ours nor Madame’s; besides that, the remainder of the paragraph clearly shows a mistake. We did not feel justified in making such an important change on our own responsibility, but are now glad to have the author do it herself. Other minor errors probably also can be found in consequence of the peculiar writing of the amanuensis, but they are very trivial in their nature.—[Editor of The Path.] [The correction indicated by H.P.B. has been incorporated in the text of her article. Page 235, mentioned by her, refers of course to The Path. The paragraph she speaks of is the one immediately following the numbered paragraph (3).—Compiler.] Collected Writings VOLUME VII November, 1891

CHINESE SPIRITS 201

CHINESE SPIRITS [Lucifer, Vol. IX, No. 51, November, 1891, pp. 182-187] [The superior numbers occurring throughout this essay refer to the Compiler’s Notes appended at the end of it.]

[In her essay entitled “Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits,” H.P.B. mentions this material, together with her essay on “Egyptian Magic,” as intended to form an Appendix to The Secret Doctrine. By this she meant, of course, her First Draft of this work. Apparently, “Chinese Spirits” was not used by her when her magnum opus was published in 1888. On the basis of what she says in her “Theories, etc.,” the present essay must have been written before 1886, and possibly in 1885, and therefore belongs approximately within this period.]

The following notes have been collected partly from an old work by a French missionary who lived in China for over forty years;1 some from a very curious unpublished work by an American gentleman who has kindly lent the writer his notes; some from information given by the Abbé Huc to the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux and the Marquis de Mirville—for these the last two gentlemen are responsible. Most of our facts, however, come from a Chinese gentleman residing for some years in Europe.

Man, according to the Chinaman, is composed of four root-substances and three acquired “semblances.” This is the magical and universal occult tradition, dating from an antiquity which has its origin in the night of time. A Latin poet shows the same source of information in his country, when declaring that:— Bis duo sunt hominis: manes, caro, spiritus, umbra; Quatuor ista loca bis duo suscipiunt. Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra, Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.2

The phantom known and described in the Celestial Empire is quite orthodox according to occult teachings, though there exist several theories in China upon it.

The human soul, says the chief (temple) teaching, helps man to become a rational and intelligent creature, but it is neither simple (homogeneous) nor spiritual; it is a compound of all that is subtle in matter. This “soul”

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is divided by its nature and actions into two principal parts: the LING and the HOUEN. The ling is the better adapted of the two for spiritual and intellectual operations, and has an “upper” ling or soul over it which is divine. Moreover, out of the union of the lower ling and houen is formed, during man’s life, a third and mixed being, fit for both intellectual and physical processes, for good and evil, while the houen is absolutely bad. Thus we have four principles in these two “substances,” which correspond, as is evident, to our Buddhi, the divine “upper” ling; to Manas, the lower ling whose twin, the houen, stands for Kama-rupa—the body of passion, desire and evil; and then we have in the “mixed being” the outcome or progeny of both ling and houen—the “Mayavi,” the astral body.

Then comes the definition of the third root-substance. This is attached to the body only during life, the body being the fourth substance, pure matter; and after the death of the latter, separating itself from the corpse—but not before its complete dissolution—it vanishes in thin air like a shadow with the last particle of the substance that generated it. This is of course Prâna, the life-principle or vital form. Now, when man dies, the following takes place:—the “upper” ling ascends heavenwards—into Nirvâna, the paradise of Amitâbha, or any other region of bliss that agrees with the respective sect of each Chinaman—carried off by the Spirit of the Dragon of Wisdom (the seventh principle); the body and its principle vanish gradually and are annihilated; remain the ling-houen and the “mixed being.” If the man was good, the “mixed being” disappears also after a time; if he was bad and was entirely under the sway of houen, the absolutely evil principle, then the latter transforms his “mixed being” into koueïs—which answers to the Catholic idea of a damned soul*—and, imparting to it a terrible vitality and

–––––––––– * The spiritual portion of the ling becomes chen (divine and saintly), after death, to become hien—an absolute saint (a Nirvanee) when joined entirely with the “Dragon of Wisdom.” ––––––––––

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power, the koueïs becomes the alter ego and the executioner of houen in all his wicked deeds. The houen and koueïs unite into one shadowy but strong entity, and may, by separating at will, and acting in two different places at a time, do terrible mischief.

The koueïs is an anima damnata according to the good missionaries, who thus make of the milliards of deceased “unbaptized” Chinamen an army of devils, who, considering they are of a material substance, ought by this time to occupy the space between our earth and the moon and feel themselves as much at ease as closely packed-up herrings in a tin-box. “The koueïs, being naturally wicked,” say the Mémoires, “do all the evil they can. They hold the middle between man and the brute and participate of the faculties of both. They have all the vices of man and every dangerous instinct of the animal. . . . . Sentenced to ascend no higher than our atmosphere, they congregate around the tombs and in the vicinity of mines, swamps, sinks and slaughter-houses, everywhere wherein rottenness and decay are found. The emanations of the latter are their favourite food, and it is with the help of those elements and atoms, and of the vapours from corpses, that they form for themselves visible and fantastic bodies to deceive and frighten men with . . . . . These miserable spirits with deceptive bodies seek incessantly the means for preventing men from getting salvation” (read, being baptised), “. . . . . and of forcing them to become damned as they themselves are” (pp. 221-222, Mémoires concernant l’histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, etc., par les Missionaires de Pékin, 1791).*

–––––––––– * According to the most ancient doctrines of magic, violent deaths and leaving the body exposed, instead of burning or burying it—led to the discomfort and pain of its astral (Linga Sarira), which died out only at the dissolution of the last particle of the matter that had composed the body. Sorcery or black magic, it is said, had always availed itself of this knowledge for necromantic and sinful purposes. “Sorcerers offer to unrestful souls decayed remnants of animals to force them to appear” (See Porphyry, de Sacrifice). St. Athanasius was accused of the black art, for having preserved the hand of Bishop ––––––––––

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This is how our old friend, the Abbé Huc, the Lazarist, unfrocked for showing the origin of certain Roman Catholic rites in Tibet and China, describes the houen. “What is the houen is a question to which it is difficult to give a clear answer . . . . It is, if you so like it, something vague, something between a spirit, a genii, and vitality” (see Huc’s Voyage à la Chine, Vol. II, p. 394). He seems to regard the houen as the future operator in the business of resurrection, which it will effect by attracting to itself the atomic substance of the body, which will be thus reformed on the day of resurrection. This answers well enough the Christian idea of one body and merely one personality to be resurrected. But if the houen has to unite on that day the atoms of all the bodies the Monad had passed through and inhabited, then even that “very cunning creature” might find itself not quite equal to the occasion. However, as while the ling is plunged in felicity, its ex-houen is left behind to wander and suffer, it is evident that the houen and the “elementary” are identical. As it is also undeniable that had disembodied man the faculty of being at one and the same time in Devachan and in Kama-loka, whence he might come to us, and put in an occasional appearance in a séance-room or elsewhere—

–––––––––– Arsenius for magical operations. “Patet quod animae illae quae, post mortem, adhuc, relicta corpora diligunt, quemadmodum animae sepultura carentium, et adhuc in turbido illo humidoque spiritu [the spiritual or fluidic body, the houen] circa cadavera sua oberrant, tanquam circa cognatum aliquod eos alliciens,” etc. See Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, pp. 354-55; Le Fantôme Humain, by Des Mousseaux.3 Homer and Horace have described many a time such evocations. In India it is practised to this day by some Tântrikas. Thus modern sorcery, as well as white magic, occultism and spiritualism, with their branches of mesmerism, hypnotism, etc., show their doctrines and methods linked to those of the highest antiquity, since the same ideas, beliefs and practices are found now as in old Aryavarta, Egypt and China, Greece and Rome. Read the treatise, careful and truthful as to facts, however erroneous as to the author’s conclusions, by P. Thyrée, Loca Infesta, and you will find that the localities most favourable for the evocations of spirits are those where a murder has been committed, a burying ground, deserted places, etc.4 ––––––––––

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then man—as just shown by the ling or houen—would be possessed of the double faculty of experiencing a simultaneous and distinct feeling of two contraries—bliss and torture. The ancients understood so well the absurdity of this theory, knowing that no absolute bliss could have place wherein there was the smallest alloy of misery, that while supposing the higher Ego of Homer to be in Elysium, they showed the Homer weeping by the Acherusia as no better than the simulacrum of the poet, his empty and deceptive image, or what we call the “shell of the false personality.” *

There is but one real Ego in each man and it must necessarily be either in one place or in another, in bliss or in grief.†

The houen, to return to it, is said to be the terror of men; in China, “that horrid spectre” troubles the living, penetrates into houses and closed objects, and takes possession of people, as “spirits” are shown to do in Europe and America—the houens of children being of still greater malice than the houens of adults. This belief is so strong in China that when they want to get rid of a child they carry it far away from home, hoping thereby to puzzle the houen and make him lose his way home.

As the houen is the fluidic or gaseous likeness of its defunct body, in judicial medicine experts use this likeness in cases of suspected murders to get at the truth. The formulae used to evoke the houen of a person dying under suspicious circumstances are officially accepted and these means are resorted to very often, according to Huc, who told Des Mousseaux (see Les Médiateurs et les Moyens

–––––––––– * See Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I, 123, who calls it a simulacrum. † Though antiquity (like esoteric philosophy) seems to divide soul into the divine and the animal, anima divina and anima bruta, the former being called nous and phren, yet the two were but the double aspect of a unity. Diogenes Laërtius (De clarorum philosophorum vitis, BK. VIII, 30) gives the common belief that the animal soul, phren—NDZ<, generally the diaphragm—resided in the stomach, Diogenes calling the anima bruta 2L:`l.5 Pythagoras and Plato also make the same division, calling the divine or rational soul 8`(@<, and the ––––––––––

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de la Magie, p. 310) that the instructing magistrate after having recited the evocation over the corpse, used vinegar mixed with some mysterious ingredients, as might any other necromancer. When the houen has appeared, it is always in the likeness of the victim as it was at the moment of its death. If the body has been burned before judicial enquiry, the houen reproduces on its body the wounds or lesions received by the murdered man—the crime is proven and justice takes note of it. The sacred books of the temples contain the complete formulae of such evocations, and even the name of the murderer may be forced from the complacent houen. In this the Chinamen were followed by Christian nations, however. During the Middle Ages the suspected murderer was placed by the judges before the victim, and if at that moment blood began to flow from the open wounds, it was held as a sign that the accused was the criminal. This belief survives to this day in France, Germany, Russia, and all the Slavonian countries. “The wounds of a murdered man will re-open at the approach of his murderer,” says a jurisprudential work (Binsfeld, De Conf. Malef:, p. 137).6 “The houen can neither be buried underground nor drowned; he travels above the ground and prefers keeping at home.” In the province of Ho-nan the teaching varies. Delaplace, a bishop in China,* tells of the “heathen Chinee” most extraordinary stories with regard to this subject.

Every man, they say, has three houens in him. At death one of the houens incarnates in a body he selects for himself; the other remains in, and with, the family, and becomes the lar; and the third watches

–––––––––– irrational –8@(@<. Empedocles gives to men and animals a dual soul, not two souls as is believed. The Theosophists and Occultists divide man into seven principles and speak of a divine and animal soul; but they add that Spirit being one and indivisible, all these “souls” and principles are only its aspects. Spirit alone is immortal, infinite, and the one reality—the rest is all evanescent and temporary, illusion and delusion. Des Mousseaux is very wrath with the late Baron Dupotet, who places an intelligent “spirit” in each of our organs, simply because he is unable to grasp the Baron’s idea. * Annales de la propagation de la foi, t. XXIV, No. 143, July, 1852. ––––––––––

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the tomb of its corpse. Papers and incense are burnt in honour of the latter, as a sacrifice to the manes; the domestic houen takes his abode in the family record-tablets amidst engraved characters, and sacrifice is also offered to him, hiangs (sticks made of incense) are burnt in his honour, and funeral repasts are prepared for him; in which case the two houens will keep quiet

—if they are those of adults, nota bene.7

Then follows a series of ghastly stories. If we read the whole literature of magic from Homer down to Dupotet we shall find everywhere the same assertion:—Man is a triple, and esoterically a septenary, compound of mind, of reason, and of an eidolon, and these three are (during life) one.

I call the soul’s idol that power which vivifies and governs bodies, whence are derived the senses, and through which the soul displays the strength of the senses . . . . . and FEEDS A BODY WITHIN ANOTHER BODY.* “Triplex unicuique homini daemon, bonus est proprius custos,” said Cornelius Agrippa,8 from whom Dupotet had the idea about the “soul’s idol.” For Cornelius says:

Anima humana constat mente, ratione et idolo. Mens illuminat rationem; ratio fluit in idolum; . . . . . idolum autem animae est, supra naturam, quae corporis et animae quodammodo nodus est . . . . . Dico autem animae idolum, potentiam illam VIVIFICATIVAM et rectricem corporis, sensuum originem, per quam ...... alit in torpore corpus. . . † This is the houen of China, once we divest him of the excrescence of popular superstition and fancy. Nevertheless the remark of a Brahman made in the review of A Fallen Idol (The Theosophist, Vol. VII, September 1886, p. 793)—whether meant seriously or otherwise by the writer—that “if the rules [of mathematical proportions and measurements] are not accurately followed in every detail, the idol is liable to be taken possession of by some powerful evil spirit”—is quite true. And as a moral law of nature—a counterpart to the mathematical—if the

–––––––––– * Dupotet, La Magie dévoilée, p. 250. † De Occulta Philosophia, Vol. III, pp. 357, 358.9 ––––––––––

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rules of harmony in the world of causes and effects are not observed during life, then our inner idol is as liable to turn out a maleficent demon (a bhoot) and to be taken possession of by other “evil” spirits, which are called by us “Elementaries” though treated almost as gods by sentimental ignoramuses. Between these and those who, like Des Mousseaux and De Mirville, write volumes—a whole library!—to prove that with the exception of a few Biblical apparitions and those that have favoured Christian saints and good Catholics, there never was a phantom, ghost, spirit, or “god,” that had appeared that was not a ferouer, and impostor, a usurpator—Satan, in short, in one of his masquerades—there is a long way and a wide margin for him who would study Occult laws and Esoteric philosophy. “A god who eats and drinks and receives sacrifice and honour can be but an evil spirit,” argues De Mirville. “The bodies of the evil spirits who were angels have deteriorated by their fall and partake of the qualities of a more condensed air” (ether?), teaches Des Mousseaux (Le Monde Magique, p. 287).10 “And this is the reason of their appetite when they devour the funeral repasts the Chinese serve before them to propitiate them; they are demons.” Well, if we go back to the supposed origin of Judaism and the Israelite nation, we find angels of light doing just the same—if “good appetite” be a sign of Satanic nature. And it is the same Des Mousseaux who, unconsciously lays, for himself and his religion, a trap. “See,” he exclaims, “the angels of God descend under the green trees near Abraham’s tent. They eat with appetite the bread and meat, the butter and the milk prepared for them by the patriarch” (Gen., xviii, 2 et seq.). Abraham dressed a whole “calf tender and good” and “they did eat” (verses 7 and 8); and baked cakes and milk and butter besides. Was their “appetite” any more divine than that of a “John King” drinking tea with rum and eating toast in the room of an English medium, or than the appetite of a Chinese houen? The Church has the power of discernment, we are assured; she knows the difference between the three, and

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judges by their bodies. Let us see. “These [the Biblical] are real, genuine spirits”! Angels, beyond any doubt (certes), argues Des Mousseaux. “Theirs are bodies which, no doubt, in dilating could, in virtue of the extreme tenuity of the substance, become transparent, then melt away, dissolve, lose their colour, become less and less visible, and finally disappear from our sight” (p. 388). So can a “John King” we are assured, and a Pekin houen no doubt. Who or what then can teach us the difference if we fail to study the uninterrupted evidence of the classics and the Theurgists, and neglect the Occult sciences? H. P.B.

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Collected Writings VOLUME VII November, 1891

COMPILER’S NOTES

[These notes correspond to the respective superior numbers in the text of “Chinese Spirits”]

1 Reference is here made to Father Joseph-Marie Amiot, and the work entitled Mémoires concernant l’histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages, etc. des Chinois, par les Missionaires de Pékin [J. Amiot, C. Bourgeois, Cibot, Ko, Poirot, A. Gaubil]. Edited by C. Batteux, L. G. Oudart Feudrix de Bréquigny, J. de Guignes, and A. I. Silvestre de Sacy. 16 volumes. Paris, 1776-1814. 4to. An earlier ed. is mentioned as of 1776-89, in 15 vols. Paris: Nyon aîné.

In describing Chinese ideas regarding the human soul, H.P.B. summarizes various passages from pp. 212, 223-24, and quotes from pp. 221-22, of Vol. XV of the above-mentioned work. The subject is treated therein in a section entitled: “Extrait d’une Lettre de M. Amiot, Missionnaire, écrite de Pékin, le 16 octobre 1787. Sur la secte des Tao-sée.” 2 These verses are also quoted by H.P.B. in her essay on “Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits,” where she credits them to Ovid. They are also brought in, in a somewhat incomplete form, in Isis Unveiled, I, 362, where they are attributed to Lucretius who is supposed to portray old Ennius as saying these words. The two last lines only occur again in Isis Unveiled, I, 37, where they are attributed to Ovid. In spite of an exhaustive search having been made, no such verses have been found either in Lucretius or in Ovid.

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3 It is not known what particular edition of Henry Cornelius Agrippa’s work this passage is quoted from. The Latin text, as quoted, seems to contain a number of errors. For this reason, rather than to correct the text, we give below the Latin original as it occurs in the 1533 edition (Beringo Fratres, Lugduni) of De occulta philosophia libri tres, by Agrippa of Nettesheim, namely in Vol. III, Chapter xlii, p. 304: “Ex his quae iam dicta sunt patet, quod animae illae que post mortem adhuc relicta corpora diligut, quemadmodu sunt animae corporum sepultum debita carentiu, seu que corpus suum violenta morte reliquerunt, & adhuc in turbido illo humidoq; spiritu circa cadavera sua oberrant, tanq circa cognatum aliquod eas alliciens, cognitis his mediis per quae quondam suis coiungebantur corporibus, per consimiles vapores, liquores nidoresq; facile evocari & allici possunt, adhibitis etia certis artificialibus luminibus, catibus, sonis & huiusmodi, que ipsam animae imaginativa spiritalemq. . .” In the English translation by J. F., published in London in 1650, under the title of Three Books of Occult Philosophy, the above passage received the following rendering: “By the things which have been already spoken, it is manifest that souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want a due burial or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carcass as in a troubled and moist spirit, being as it were allured by something that hath an affinity with them; the means being known by the which in times past they were joined to their bodies, they may easily be called forth & allured by the like vapours, liquors and savours, certain artificial lights being also used, songs, sounds and such like, which do move the imaginative and spiritual Harmony of the soul. . .” (pp. 488-89.) As to Le Fantôme Humain, this appears to be only a subtitle for the later chapters of the work by des Mousseaux entitled Les médiateurs et les moyens de la magie, and not a separate work by that author. With regard to Porphyry’s De sacrificio et magia, a mediaeval condensation of his De abstinentia carnis, a passage similar to what H.P.B. mentions, but not identical with it, occurs in Book II, 47. Vide Thomas Taylor’s Select Works of Porphyry, p. 82. 4 H.P.B. makes reference here to a very rare work by Petrus Thyraeus (1546-1601), entitled Loca infesta, hoc est, de infestis ob molestantus daemoniorum et defunctorum hominum spiritus locis . . . Accessit ejusdem libellus de Terriculamentis nocturnis, etc. Coloniae Agrippinae, 1598, 4to; also Lugduni, 1625. Both editions are in the British Museum.

Apart from the fact that A. J. Caillet mentions him (in his Manuel Bibliographique des Science Psychiques ou Occultes. Paris: Lucien Dorbon,

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1912. 3 vols.) under the name of Thiresus of Nuys, Diocese of Cologne, and says he was a Jesuit, nothing else seems to be readily available concerning this writer.

5 The translation in the Loeb Classical Series does not seem to convey this meaning, however. It runs as follows: “The Soul of man, he says, is divided into three parts, intelligence (nous), reason (phren), and passion (thumos). Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals as well, but reason by man alone. The seat of the soul extends from the heart to the brain; the part of it which is in the heart is passion, while the parts located in the brain are reason and intelligence. The senses are distillations from these.”

6 Reference is here made to Petrus Binsfeldius and his Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficorum et Sagarum recognitus et auctus, etc. An et quanta fides iis adhibenda sit? Augustae Trevirorum, excudebat H. Bock, 1591. 8-vo. 633 pp. Also 1605, 8-vo. 767 pp.; 1596 (British Museum: 8630. c. II.), and 1623. German translation, Trier, 1590.

He also wrote Commentarius intitulum Codicis de Maleficis (same city and publisher, 1591, 8-vo), which is a supplement to the first-mentioned work, and is often bound together with it.

The Latin original is as follows:

“Nam fuerat mortuus quidam homo nocturno tempore, & nescie batur a quo: Attamen multi erant suspecti de morte sua, & quidam homo senex dixit mihi: Domine gubernator, si vultis scire veritate huius homicidij, faciatis cora! vobis portare cadauer illuis mortui, postea faciatis vocare illos, suspecti sunt de illo homicidio, & veniat unus post alium, ubi est cadauer illud, tunc cum superuenit verus homicida, vulnera ipsius fluent sanguinem de nouo: Quo audito feci coram me portare illud cadauer, & feci vocare illos suspectos de uno in unum, & cum superuenit verus homicida, vulnera illius cadaueris inceperunt effluere, & emittere sanguinem, de quo summe sui admiratus . . .”

7 H. P. B. gives here a rather free translation of a passage from a French letter dated Moncy-de-Fou, 25 September, 1851, and entitled “Missions de la Chine. Lettre de M. Delaplace, Missionnaire Lazariste, à un Prêtre du diocèse de Sens.” The Annales (Lyon, France) in which it was published are described as a periodical devoted to the publication of Letters from Bishops and Missionaries of various Old and New World Missions, as well as of documents concerning Missions and the dissemination of the faith.

The French text is as follows:

“. . . . chaque homme a trois houen . . . . . houen sera quelque chose de vague comme esprit, génie, vitalité. Chaque individue a donc trois houen. A la mort de leur possesseur, un de ces houen transmigre dans un corps. Un autre reste dans la famille; c’est comme le

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houen domestique. Enfin le troisième repose sur la tombe. À cedernier on brûle des papiers (sorte de sacrifice). Au houen domestiquc qui siège sur la tablette, au milieu des caractères qui y sont gravés, on brûle des hiang (bâtons d’odeur), on offre des repas funèbres, etc. Ces honneurs rendus, on est tranquille: les houens sont apaisés; qu’y a-t-il à craindre?

8 This sentence is from Chapter xxii, page 252, of the edition of De occulta philosophia from which we have already quoted above. The chapter is entitled “That there is a threefold keeper in man, and from whence each of them proceeds” The sentence, in its more complete form, is as follows:

“Triplex unicuique homini daemon bonus est proprius custos, unus quidem sacer, alter geniture, tertius professionis. . .” which, in the translation of J.F., is rendered as:

“Every man hath a threefold good Demon, as a proper keeper, or preserver, the one whereof is holy, another of the nativity, and the other of profession. . .” (p. 410.)

9 The passages seem to have a number of inaccuracies and a considerable amount of text is left out, as indicated by dots. It is from Chapter xliii, pages 306 and 308. The Latin text is as follows:

Anima humana constat mente, ratione & idolo: mens illuminat rationem, ratio fluit in idolum, omnia una est anima. Ratio nisi per mentem illuminatur, ab errore no est immunis: Mens autem lumen rationi non praebet, nisi lucescente deo, primo videlicet lumine: prima enim lux in deo est supereminens omne intellectu: qua propter non potest lux intelligibilis vocari, sed lux illa quando infunditurmenti, fit intellectualis atque intelligi potest: deinde quando per metem infunditur rationi, fit rationalis, ac potest non solum intelligi, sed etiam cogitari ...... [p. 306] Idolum autem animae in fato est, supra naturam, quae corporis & animae quodammodo nodus est, sub fato, supra corpus: iccirco coelestium corporum influxibus immutatur, rerumq; naturalium & corporalium qualitatibus afficitur. Dico autem animae idolum, potentiam illam vivificativam et rectricem corporis, sensuum originem, per quam ipsa anima in hoc corporeuires explicat sentiendi: sentit corporalia per corpus, movit corpus per locum. regit in loco, alitq; in torpore corpus. . . . . [p. 308]” which is rendered by the translator, J.F., as follows:

“Man’s soul consisteth of a mind, reason and imagination; the mind illuminates reason, reason floweth into the imagination: All is one soul. Reason unless it be illuminated by the mind, is not free from errour: but the mind giveth not light to reason, unless God enlighten, viz. the first light; for the first light is in God very far exceeding all understanding: wherefore it cannot be called an intelligible light; but this when it is infused into the mind, is made

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intellectual, and can be understood: then when it is infused by the mind to the reason, it is made rational, and cannot only be understood but also considered. . . . . [p. 492] . . . . But the sensitiveness of the soul is in fate, above nature, which is in a certain manner the knot of the body and soul, and under fate, above the body; therefore it is changed by the influences of the heavenly bodies, and affected by the qualities of natural and corporeal things: now I call the sensitiveness of the soul, that vivifying and rectifying power of the body, the original of the senses; the soul itself doth manifest in this body it sensitive powers and perceiveth corporeal things by the body, and locally moveth the body, and governeth it in his place, and nourisheth it in a body. . . . . [pp. 494-95]”

10 Le Monde Magique does not seem to be a separate work by des Mousseaux, but only a running-head at the top of the pages of his work entitled Les médiateurs et les moyens de la magie.

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Collected Writings VOLUME VII November, 1886

ANIMATED STATUES *

[The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, No. 86, November, 1886, pp. 65-73] To whatsoever cause it may be due matters little, but the word fetish is given in the dictionaries the restricted sense of “an object selected temporarily for worship,”a small idol used by the African savages,” etc., etc.

In his Des Cultes qui ont précédé et amené l’idolatrie, Dulaure defines Fetishism as “the adoration of an object considered by the ignorant and the weak-minded as the receptacle or the habitation of a god or genius.” Now all this is extremely erudite and profound, no doubt; but it lacks the merit of being either true or correct. Fetish may be an idol among the negroes of

–––––––––– * [In this essay, H.P.B. uses a good deal of material collected by the Marquis Eudes de Mirville in his work entitled: Pneumatologie. Des Esprits et de leurs manifestations divers, which, in its entirety, consists of three Mémoires addressed to the French Academy, between the years 1851 and 1868. This material is in many places woven into her own narrative, and is not necessarily quoted, except in cases of definite passages which are marked accordingly. Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s. v. MIRVILLE, for full data regarding this work.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Africa, according to Webster; and there are weak-minded and ignorant people certainly who are fetish worshippers. Yet the theory that certain objects—statues, images, and amulets for example—serve as a temporary or even constant habitation to a “god,” “genius” or spirit simply, has been shared by some of the most intellectual men known to history. It was not originated by the ignorant and weak-minded, since the majority of the world’s sages and philosophers, from credulous Pythagoras down to sceptical Lucian, believed in such a thing in antiquity; as in our highly civilized, cultured and learned century several hundred millions of Christians still believe in it, whether the above definitions be correct or the one we shall now give. The administration of the Sacrament, the mystery of Transubstantiation “in the supposed conversion of the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ,” would render the bread and wine and the communion cup along with them fetishes—no less than the tree or rag or stone of the savage African. Every miracle-working image, tomb and statue of a Saint, Virgin or Christ, in the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches, have thus to be regarded as fetishes; because, whether the miracle is supposed to be wrought by God or an angel, by Christ or a saint, those images or statues do become—if the miracle be claimed as genuine—“the receptacle or dwelling” for a longer or shorter time of God or an “angel of God.”

It is only in the Dictionnaire des Religions (article on “Fétichisme”)* that a pretty correct definition may be found: “The word fetish was derived from the Portuguese word feitiço, ‘enchanted,’ ‘bewitched’ or ‘charmed’; whence fatum, ‘destiny,’ fatua, ‘fairy’ . . ..”

–––––––––– * [Reference is here made to the Dictionnaire Universel historique et comparatif de toutes les religions du monde, etc., by the Abbé François Marie Bertrand. 4 Vols. Paris, 1848-50. It comprises Vols. 24-27 of J.P. Migne’s Encyclopédie théologique. The quotation appears to be merely a summary of the longer explanation in the original work. —Compiler.] ––––––––––

ANIMATED STATUES 215

Fetish, moreover, was and still ought to be identical with “idol”; and as the author of The Teraphim of Idolatry says: “Fetishism is the adoration of any object, whether inorganic or living, large or of minute proportions, in which, or, in connection with which, any ‘spirit’ [good or bad in short—an invisible intelligent power] has manifested its presence.”*

Having collected for my Secret Doctrine a number of notes upon this subject, I may now give some of them à propos of the latest theosophical novel, A Fallen Idol,† and thus show that work of fiction based on some very occult truths of Esoteric Philosophy.

The images of all the gods of antiquity, from the earliest Aryans down to the latest Semites—the Jews—were all idols and fetishes, whether called Teraphim, Urim and Thummim, Kabeiri, or cherubs, or the gods Lares. If, speaking of the teraphim—a word that Grotius translates as “angels,” an etymology authorized by Cornelius, who says that they “were the symbols of angelic presence”—the Christians are allowed to call them “the mediums through which divine presence was manifested,” why not apply the same to the idols of the “heathen”?

I am perfectly alive to the fact that the modern man of science, like the average sceptic, believes no more in an “animated” image of the Roman Church than he does

–––––––––– * [By referring to de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. III, p. 249, where this quote is to be found, the impression can be gathered that de Mirville speaks in this case editorially, instead of actually quoting from some other author. This impression is strengthened by the fact that one of the sub-titles of this Chapter xi in his work is: “Les téraphims idolâtriques,” which corresponds very well to H.P.B.’s title, “The Teraphim of Idolatry.” It is probable, therefore, that no special work is meant here, but rather this particular chapter of de Mirville.—Compiler.] † [By F. Anstey—pseud. of Thomas Anstey Guthrie, 1856-1934—New York: J. W. Lovell Co., 1886; 2nd ed., 1886; 3rd ed., 1902.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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in the “animated” fetish of a savage. But there is no question, at present, of belief or disbelief. It is simply the evidence of antiquity embracing a period of several thousands of years, as against the denial of the XIXth century—the century of Spiritualism and Spiritism, of Theosophy and Occultism, of Charcot and his hypnotism, of psychic “suggestion,” and of unrecognized BLACK MAGIC all round. Let us Europeans honour the religion of our forefathers, by questioning it on its beliefs and their origin, before placing on its defence pagan antiquity and its grand philosophy; where do we find in Western sacred literature, so-called, the first mention of idols and fetishes? In chapter xxxi (et seq.) of Genesis, in Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia, wherein the ancestors of Abraham, Serug and Terah, worshipped little idols in clay which they called their gods; and where also, in Haran, Rachel stole the images (teraphim) of her father Laban. Jacob may have forbidden the worship of those gods, yet one finds 325 years after that prohibition, the Mosaic Jews adoring “the gods of the Amorites” all the same (Joshua, xxiv, 14-15). The teraphim-gods of Laban exist to this day among certain tribes of Mussulmans on Persian territory. They are small statuettes of tutelary genii, or gods, which are consulted on every occasion. The Rabbis explain that Rachel had no other motive for stealing her father’s gods than that of preventing his learning from them the direction she and her husband Jacob had taken, lest he should prevent them from leaving his home once more. Thus, it was not piety, or the fear of the Lord God of Israel, but simply a dread of the indiscretion of the gods that made her secure them. Moreover, her mandrakes were only another kind of sortilegious and magical implements. Now what is the opinion of various classical and even sacred writers on these idols, which Hermes Trismegistus calls “statues foreseeing futurity” (Asclepius)?*

–––––––––– * [Reference is here made to one of the extant Hermetic fragments. It is a Dialogue between Asclepius and Hermes Trismegistus, the ––––––––––

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Philo of Biblos shows that the Jews consulted demons like the Amorites, especially through small statues made of gold, shaped as nymphs which, questioned at any hour, would instruct them what the querists had to do and what to avoid (Antiquities).* In Moreh Nebhuchim (lib. III) it is said that nothing resembled more those portative and preserving gods of the pagans (dii portatiles vel Averrunci) than those tutelary gods of` the Jews. They were veritable phylacteries or animated talismans, the simulacra spirantia of Apuleius (Book xi), whose answers, given in the temple of the goddess of Syria, were heard by Lucian personally, and repeated by him. Kircher (the Jesuit Father) shows also that the teraphim looked, in quite an extraordinary way, like the pagan Serapises of Egypt; and Cedrenus seems to corroborate that statement of Kircher (in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Vol. III, pp. 474-75) by showing that the t and the s (like the Sanskrit s and Zend h) were

–––––––––– Greek original of which is now lost. We have only a Latin translation of it, which used to be attributed by some to Apuleius. It is known as Hermetis Trismegisti Asclepius, seu de Natura Deorum Dialogus. Latin text and English translation of it can be found in the monumental work, Hermetica. The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings which contain religious and philosophical teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. Edited and transl. by Walter Scott. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924-26.

Hermes speaks therein of “. . . . statuas animatas sensu et spiritu plenas, tantaque facientes et talia, statuas futurorum praescias, eaque sorte, vate, somniis, multisque aliis rebus praedicentes, inbecillitates hominibus facientes easque curantes, tristitiam laetitiamque pro meritus (dispensantes).”—“. . . statues, animated and conscious, filled with spirit, and doing many mighty works; statues foreseeing futurity and predicting events by the drawing of lots, by prophetic inspiration, by dreams, and many other ways; statues which inflict diseases and heal them, dispensing sorrow and joy according to men’s deserts.”—Compiler.]

* [This statement appears in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. III, p. 251, where it is credited to Antiquities. It is most likely that this is meant to be a reference to a work known as Philonis Judaei Antiquitatum Biblicarum liber, which was published at Basle in 1527, edited by Johannes Sichart. Formerly this Latin version of a vanished Greek (and most probably a Hebrew) original was ascribed ––––––––––

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convertible letters, the Seraphim (or Serapis) and the teraphim, being absolute synonyms.*

–––––––––– to Philo Judaeus, known also as Philo of Alexandria, but later research has ascertained that this is hardly possible, both on account of its style and literary character. Sichart used for his editorial work two MSS.: one belonging to the Monastery of Lorsch, and another belonging to Fulda; the latter has since disappeared. There are MSS. of this work in the Vatican Library (Vaticanus Latinus 488, 15th cent.) and the Vienna Library (Vindob. Lat. 446). It would appear that for several centuries the existence of this work, as edited by Sichart, was unknown or rather forgotten, until brought to light in the last years of the 19th century. Yet the Latin text of this work on Biblical Antiquities had been circulated many times together with the translations of genuine works by Philo Alexandrinus, thus probably giving rise to the belief that it was from the pen of Philo.

This work is a version of Biblical history from Adam to the death of Saul, and falls under the general category of Apocrypha. In one of its passages, it speaks of seven golden idols adorned with precious stones and found by the tribe of Asher; they belonged to the Amorites and were called by them the Holy Nymphs; when invoked, the nymphs showed them their tasks from hour to hour. For further details consult Leopold Cohn’s essay, “An Apocryphal Work ascribed to Philo of Alexandria,” in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. X, Jan., 1898, pp. 277-332.

On the other hand, Philo of Biblos (or Byblos), known also as Herennius Byblius, was an entirely different personage, and the fact of his being mentioned in this connection by de Mirville is most likely a lapsus calami.—Compiler.]

* [Page 475, in the chapter entitled “De Penatibus, Laribus, et Serapibus Aegyptiorum,” has the following passage which expresses definitely the thought to which H. P. B. refers:

“Atque hace sunt simulachra quae Hebraei Theraphim vocant, quae Rachelem patri suo Laban furatam facer textus Genes. cap. 31 testatur; de quibus integro tractatu Tomo primo, Syntagmata IV, fol. 254. egimus & ex Aegypto per feruos Abrahame in Palaestinam portata, propagataque, ibidem docuimus. Theraphim dicebant, quia cum S. pronunciare non possent, mutato S in T, more chaldaeis folito, & mutato ultimo S in im, Theraphim ea simulachra dicebant, quae Aegyptij Serapes dicebant.” —Compiler ––––––––––

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As to the use of these idols, Maimonides tells us (Moreh Nebhuchim, lib. III, chap. xxix) that these gods or images passed for being endowed with the prophetic gift, and as being able to tell the people in whose possession they were “all that was useful and salutary for them.”

All these images, we are told, had the form of a baby or small child, others were only occasionally much larger. They were statues or regular idols in the human shape. The Chaldeans exposed them to the beams of certain planets for the latter to imbue them with their virtues and potency. These were for purposes of astro-magic; the regular teraphim for those of necromancy and sorcery, in most cases. The spirits of the dead (elementaries) were attached to them by magic art, and they were used for various sinful purposes.

Ugolino* puts in the mouth of the sage Gamaliel, St. Paul’s master (or guru), the following words, which he quotes, he says, from his Capito, chap. xxxvi:

They [the possessors of such necromantic teraphim] killed a newborn baby, cut off its head, and placed under its tongue, salted and oiled, a little gold lamina in which the name of an evil spirit was perforated; then, after suspending that head on the wall of their chamber, they lighted lamps before it, and prostrated on the ground, they conversed with it.†

–––––––––– * Blasius Ugolino, Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, etc., Vol. XXIII, col. cccclxxv. [Vide the Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s. v. UGOLINO, for further data.— Compiler.] † [The Latin original of this passage is as follows: “Scriptor antiquissimus R. Elieser Magnus, filius Hircani, qui in Gemars R. Elieser appellatur, & Rabban Gammalieli secundum, qui fuit praeceptor Apostoli Pauli, affinitate junctus fuisse fertur, in Capitulis suis Cap. xxxvi. Teraphim ita describit: (Hebrew script) i.e. mactabant hominem primogenitum, & ungue secabant caputejus, & saliebant illud sale, & oleo, scribebantque super laminam auream nomen spiritus immundi, & ponebant illam sub lingua ejus. Postea reponebant illud caput ad parietam, & incandebant lampadas coram eo, ac procumbebant coram ipso; & sic loquebatur simulacrum illud cum eis.” —Compiler] ––––––––––

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The learned Marquis de Mirville believes that it was just such ex-human fetishes that were meant by Philostratus, who gives a number of instances of the same. “There was the head of Orpheus”—he says—“which spoke to Cyrus, and the head of a priest-sacrificer from the temple of Jupiter Hoplosmios, in Caria, which, when severed from its body, revealed, as Aristotle narrates, the name of its murderer, one called Ceucidas; and the head of one Publius Capitanus, which, according to Trallianus, at the moment of the victory won by Acilius Glabrio, the Roman Consul, over Antiochus, King of Asia, predicted to the Romans the great misfortunes that would soon befall them. . . .” (Pneumatologie. Des Esprits, etc., 2nd Mémoire to the Academy, Vol. III, p. 252). Diodorus tells the world how such idols were fabricated for magical purposes in days of old. Semelê, the daughter of Cadmus, having in consequence of a fright given premature birth to a child of seven months, Cadmus, in order to follow the custom of his country and to give it (the babe) a supermundane origin which would make it live after death, enclosed its body within a gold statue, and made of it an idol for which a special cult and rites were established. (Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, lib. I, 23, 4-5.)* As Fréret, in his article in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, Vol. XXIII, p. 247, pointedly remarks, when commenting upon the above passage: “A singular thing, deserving still more attention, is that the said consecration of Semelê’s baby by Cadmus, which the Orphics show as having been the custom of Cadmus’ ancestors—is precisely the ceremony described by the Rabbis, as cited by Seldenus, with regard to the teraphim or household gods of the Syrians and the Phoenicians. There is little probability, however, that the Jews should have been acquainted with the Orphics.” Thus, there is every reason to believe that the numerous drawings in Father Kircher’s Oedipus, little

–––––––––– * [The Greek original of this passage uses the expression , for “gilded” or “enclosed in gold.”—Comp.] ––––––––––

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figures and heads with metallic laminae protruding from under their tongues, which hang entirely out of the heads’ mouths, are real and genuine teraphims—as shown by de Mirville. Then again in Le Blanc’s Religions (Vol. III, p. 277), speaking of the Phoenician teraphim, the author compares them to the Greco-Phrygian palladium, which contained human relics. “All the mysteries of the apotheosis, of orgies, sacrifices and magic, were applied to such heads. A child young enough to have his innocent soul still united with the Anima Mundi—the Mundane Soul—was killed,” he says; “his head was embalmed and its soul was fixed in it, as it is averred, by the power of magic and enchantments.” After which followed the usual process, the gold lamina, etc., etc.*

Now this is terrible BLACK MAGIC, we say; and none but the dugpas of old, the villainous sorcerers of antiquity, used it. In the Middle Ages only several Roman Catholic priests are known to have resorted to it; among others the apostate Jacobin priest in the service of Queen Catherine of Medici, that faithful daughter of the Church of Rome and the author of the “St. Bartholomew Massacre.” The

–––––––––– * [This excerpt is from a work entitled Les religions et leur interprétation chrétienne, by Th.-Prosper le Blanc d’Ambonne. Paris: J. Leroux et Jouly, 1852-55. 3 vols. 8vo. The original French text of this entire passage is as follows: “Les mêmes idées paraissent avoir présidé à la confection des Théraphim ou images par excellence des Phéniciens. Semblables au Palladium gréco-phrygien, ils renfermaient des débris humains ou plutôt des reliques de victimes humaines. Tous les mystères de l’apothéose, des orgies, des sacrifices et de la magie s’y trouvaient réunis. On immolait un enfant assez jeune pour que son âme innocente ne fût pas encore séparée de l’Âme du monde; on conservait sa tête embaumée dans laquelle son âme était fixée par la puissance de la magie et des enchantements; on mettait dans sa bouche une lame d’or, emblème physique de l’épanouissement de la lumière et allégorie de la manifestation de la vérité; sur cette lame était gravé le nom de Dieu, puis la tête était enfermée dans une épaisse muraille, symbole de la caverne cosmogonique qui recèle la vie de l’univers, maison de Dieu.” The italics in the passage as quoted by H.P.B. are her own emphasis of certain ideas.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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story is given by Bodin, in his famous work on Sorcery, De la Démonomanie des Sorciers (Paris, 1587); and it is quoted in Isis Unveiled (Vol. II, pp. 55-56). Pope Sylvester II was publicly accused by Cardinal Benno of sorcery, on account of his “Brazen Oracular Head.” These heads and other talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and bishops, were fac-similes of the animated gods of the ancient temples. Benedict IX, John XX, and VIth and VIIth Popes Gregory are all known in history as sorcerers and magicians. Notwithstanding such an array of facts to show that the Latin Church has despoiled the ancient Jews of all—aye, even of their knowledge of black art inclusively—one of their advocates of modern times, namely, the Marquis de Mirville, is not ashamed to publish against the modern Jews, the most terrible and foul of accusations!

In his violent polemics with the French symbologists, who try to find a philosophical explanation for ancient Bible customs and rites, he says: “We pass over the symbolic significations that are sought for to explain all such customs of the idolatrous Jews [their human teraphim and severed baby-heads], because we do not believe in them [such explanations] at all. But we do believe, for one, that ‘the head’ consulted by the Scandinavian Odin in every difficult affair was a teraphim of the same [magic] class. And that in which we believe still more is, that all those mysterious disappearances and abductions of small [Christian] children, practised at all times and even in our own day by the Jews—are the direct consequences of those ancient and barbarous necromantic practices . . . . Let the reader remember the incident of Demas and Father Thomas.” (Pneumatologie. Des Esprits, etc., Vol. III, p. 254.)

Quite clear and unmistakable this. The unfortunate, despoiled Israelites are plainly charged with abducting Christian children to behead and make oracular heads with them, for purposes of sorcery! Where will bigotry and intolerance with their odium theologicum land next, I wonder?

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On the contrary, it seems quite evident that it is just in consequence of such terrible malpractices of Occultism that Moses and the early ancestors of the Jews were so strict in carrying out the severe prohibition against graven images, statues and likenesses in any shape, of either “gods” or living men. This same reason was at the bottom of the like prohibition by Mohammed and enforced by all the Mussulman prophets. For the likeness of any person, in whatever form and mode, of whatever material, may be turned into a deadly weapon against the original by a really learned practitioner of the black art. Legal authorities during the Middle Ages, and even some of 200 years ago, were not wrong in putting to death those in whose possession small wax figures of their enemies were found, for it was murder contemplated, pure and simple. “Thou shalt not draw the vital spirits of thy enemy, or of any person into his simulacrum,” for “this is a heinous crime against nature.” And again: “Any object into which the fiat of a spirit has been drawn is dangerous, and must not be left in the hands of the ignorant . . . . An expert (in magic) has to be called to purify it.” (Pract. Laws of Occult Science, Book V, Coptic copy.) In a kind of “Manual” of Elementary Occultism, it is said: “To make a bewitched object (fetish) harmless, its parts have to be reduced to atoms (broken), and the whole buried in damp soil”—(follow instructions, unnecessary in a publication).* That which is called “vital spirits” is the astral body. “Souls, whether united or separated from their bodies, have a corporeal substance inherent to their nature,” says St. Hilarius (Commentarius in Matthaeum, cap. v, 8).†

–––––––––– * The author of A Fallen Idol,—whether through natural intuition or study of occult laws, it is for him to say—shows knowledge of this fact by making Nebelsen say that the spirit or the tirthankara was paralyzed and torpid during the time his idol had been buried in India. That Eidôlon or Elementary could do nothing. See p. 295. † [Although the original text of H.P.B. has “St. Hilarion,” she means St. Hilarius Pictaviensis, or St. Hilary of Poitiers (died 368 A. D.), the original Latin text of the passage being: “. . . . Nam ––––––––––

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Now the astral body of a living person, of one unlearned in occult sciences, may be forced (by an expert in magic) to animate, or be drawn to, and then fixed within any object, especially into anything made in his likeness, a portrait, a statue, a little figure in wax, &c. And as whatever hits or affects the astral reacts by repercussion on the physical body, it becomes logical and stands to reason that, by stabbing the likeness in its vital parts—the heart, for instance—the original may be sympathetically killed, without anyone being able to detect the cause of it. The Egyptians, who separated man (exoterically) into three divisions or groups—“mind body” (pure spirit, our 7th and 6th prin.); the spectral soul (the 5th, 4th, and 3rd principles); and the gross body (prana and sthula sarira), called forth in their theurgies and evocations (for divine white magical purposes, as well as for those of the black art) the “spectral soul,” or astral body, as we call it.

“It was not the soul itself that was evoked, but its simulacrum that the Greeks called Eidôlon, and which was the middle principle between soul and body. That doctrine came from the East, the cradle of all learning. The Magi of Chaldea as well as all other followers of Zoroaster, believed that it was not the divine soul alone (spirit) which would participate in the glory of celestial light, but also the sensitive soul.” (“Psellus, in Scholiis, in Orac.”)*

–––––––––– et animarum species, sive obtinentium corpora, sive corporibus exsulantium, corpoream tamen naturae suae substantiam sortiuntur; quia omne quod creatum est, in aliquo sit necesse est . . . .” (J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Prima, Paris, 1844, etc., Tomus IX, col. 946)—Compiler.] * [This seems to be a rather unsatisfactory reference. It is most likely to be the Scholiis of Psellus on the Oracles of Zoroaster. A thorough search has been made in the work bearing the title of: Zoroaster, Oracula magica cum Scholiis Plethonis et Pselli nunc primum editi. Studio Johannis Opsopoei, 1607, containing both the Greek and the Latin texts. However, the passage quoted by H. P. B. has not been found therein. It may be that this excerpt is merely a general summary of ideas which, as a whole, are to be found in Psellus’ Scholiis.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

H. P. B. AT HER DESK, 17, LANSDOWNE ROAD, LONDON This picture was taken one morning in the Fall of 1887, just as she was about to begin her day’s work. The sheet of paper in front of her is part of the MSS of The Secret Doctrine, other sheets lying about. Her famous Matara tobacco basket is just beyond her hand. The pen she holds is an American gold pen given to her by a New York Theosophist and made by John Foley. This likeness was originally published in The Path, New York, Vol. VII, May, 1892, p. 39.

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Translated into our Theosophical phraseology, the above refers to Atma and Buddhi—the vehicle of spirit. The Neo-Platonics, and even Origen—“call the astral body Augoeides and Astroeides, i.e., one having the brilliancy of the stars” (Histoire et Traité des Sciences Occultes, by Count de Résie, Vol. II, p. 598).* Generally speaking, the world’s ignorance on the nature of the human phantom and vital principle, as on the functions of all man’s principles, is deplorable. Whereas science denies them all—an easy way of cutting the gordian knot of the difficulty—the churches have evolved the fanciful dogma of one solitary principle, the Soul, and neither of the two will stir from its respective preconceptions, notwithstanding the evidence of all antiquity and its most intellectual writers. Therefore, before the question can be argued with any hope of lucidity, the following points have to be settled and studied by our Theosophists—those, at any rate, who are interested in the subject: 1. The difference between a physiological hallucination and a psychic or spiritual clairvoyance and clairaudience. 2. Spirits, or the entities of certain invisible beings—whether ghosts of once living men, angels, spirits, or elementals—have they, or have they not, a natural though an ethereal and to us invisible body? Are they united to, or can they assimilate some fluidic substance that would help them to become visible to men? 3. Have they, or have they not, the power of so becoming infused among the atoms of any object, whether it be a statue (idol), a picture, or an amulet, as to impart to it their potency and virtue, and even to animate it? 4. Is it in the power of any Adept, Yogi or Initiate, to fix such entities, whether by White or Black magic, in certain objects?

–––––––––– * [The original French text differs somewhat. It runs as follows: “. . . . Ils nommaient ce corps de l’âme séparé des corps grossiers augoeidé astroeeidé c’est-à-dire semblable aux astres ou semblable à l’éclat.”—Comp.] ––––––––––

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5. What are the various conditions (save Nirvana and Avitchi) of good and bad men after death? etc., etc. All this may be studied in the literature of the ancient classics, and especially in Aryan literature. Meanwhile, I have tried to explain and have given the collective and individual opinions thereon of the great philosophers of antiquity in my Secret Doctrine.* I hope the book will now very soon appear. Only, in order to counteract the effects of such humoristical works as A Fallen Idol on weak-minded people, who see in it only a satire upon our beliefs, I thought best to give here the testimony of the ages to the effect that such post-mortem pranks as played by Mr. Anstey’s sham ascetic, who died a sudden death, are of no rare occurrence in nature. To conclude, the reader may be reminded that if the astral body of man is no superstition founded on mere

–––––––––– * [Considering the date when this essay on “Animated Statues” was written, it is evident that H. P. B. meant by Secret Doctrine her early draft of it, portions of which had been sent to Adyar in September 1886. The material she refers to is not to be found in the MSS. which went to Adyar. However, by turning to pages 234-240 of the Volume published in 1897 in London under the editorship of Annie Besant, and entitled “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III,” the student will find a brief essay on “The Idols and the Teraphim,” which in our estimation is precisely the material spoken of by H. P. B. in the text above. It is quite probable that H. P. B. meant at first to incorporate it into one of the volumes of The Secret Doctrine as published in 1888, but for some reason or other did not do so; however, she included therein brief passages from it, as can be seen by consulting Vol. I, pp. 394, 395, and Vol. II, p. 453. That the essay on “The Idols and the Teraphim” was not what H. P. B. intended to say on the subject in her prospective Third Volume is evidenced by the interesting fact that in The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 455, she definitely states that “practical methods of such ancient divination will be found” in “Volume HI, Part II, of this present work.” The real Volume III having vanished without a trace, her explanations of such methods have never appeared in print. In view of the facts outlined above, H. P. B.’s essay on “The Idols and the Teraphim” follows in immediate chronological sequence her essay on “Animated Statues.”—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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hallucinations, but a reality in nature, then it becomes only logical that such an eidôlon, whose individuality is all centred after death in his personal EGO—should be attracted to the remains of the body that was his, during life;* and in the case the latter was burnt and the ashes buried, that it should seek to prolong its existence vicariously by either possessing itself of some living body (a medium’s), or, by attaching itself to his own statue, picture, or some familiar object in the house or locality that it inhabited. The “vampire” theory can hardly be a superstition altogether. Throughout all Europe, in Germany, Styria, Moldavia, Servia, France and Russia, those bodies of the deceased who are believed to have become vampires, have special exorcismal rites established for them by their respective Churches. Both the Greek and Latin religions think it beneficent to have such bodies dug out and transfixed to the earth by a pole of aspen-tree wood. However it may be, whether truth or superstition, ancient philosophers and poets, classics and lay writers, have believed as we do now, and that for several thousand years in history, that man had within him his astral counterpart, which would appear by separating itself or oozing out of the gross body, during life as well as after the death of the latter. Till that moment the “spectral soul” was the vehicle of the divine soul and the pure spirit. But, as soon as the flames had devoured the physical envelope, the spiritual soul, separating itself from the simulacrum of man, ascended to its new home of unalloyed bliss (Devachan or Swarga), while the spectral eidôlon descended into the regions of Hades (limbus, purgatory, Kama loka). “I have terminated my earthly career,” exclaims Dido, “my glorious spectre [astral body], the IMAGE of my person, will now descend into the womb of the earth.”† –––––––––– * Even burning does not affect its interference or prevent it entirely—since it can avail itself of the ashes. Earth alone will make it powerless. † Which is not the interior of the earth, or hell, as taught by the anti-geological theologians, but the cosmic matrix of its region—the astral light of our atmosphere. ––––––––––

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Vixi, et quem dederet cursum fortuna, peregi; Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago. (Virgil, Aeneid, lib. IV, 653-54)

Sabinus and Servius Honoratus Maurus (a learned commentator of Virgil of the VIth century) have taught, as shown by Delrio, the demonologian (lib. ii, ch. xx and xxv, p. 116),* that man was composed, besides his soul, of a shadow (umbra) and a body. The soul ascends to heaven, the body is pulverized, and the shadow is plunged in Hades. . . . . This phantom—umbra seu simulacrum—is not a real body, they say: it is the appearance of one, that no hand can touch, as it avoids contact like a breath. Homer shows this same shadow in the phantom of Patroclus, who perished, killed by Hector, and yet “Here he is—it is his face, his voice, his blood still flowing from his wounds;” (See Iliad, XXIII, 65-68, and also Odyssey, XI, 468.) The ancient Greeks and Latins had two souls—anima bruta and anima divina, the first of which is in Homer the animal soul, the image and the life of the body, and the second, the immortal, and the divine.

–––––––––– * [This his has reference to a work by Martin Anton Delrio (1551-1608), sometimes spelt Del Rio, entitled, Disquisitionum magisarum libri sex. 3 tom. Lovanii, 1599. 4to. Other editions being those of 1600, 1603, 1608, 1613, 1657. It is not known which edition is meant by H. P. B.’s reference. In the 1599 edition, however (British Museum, 719. h. 12.), the following passage embodying the ideas brought out by H. P. B. occurs in Lib. 2. Q. XXVI, Sec. 2, Tom. 1:

“. . . . Addit Platonicos (fide excipio) secutus D. Augustinus, hosce malos vocari Lemureis; Servius Honoratus scribit eos Maneis vocari, quamdiu in alia corpora nondum migrarunt. Idem Servius & Sabinus, ab anima separant umbram & simulacrum, putant enim (falso) homine constare umbra, corpore, & anima; animam caelum petere, corpus in terram dainere, umbram siue simulacrum descendere ad inferos: umbram volunt esse non verum corpus, sed speciem quandam corpoream, quae nequeat tangi, instar venti. Conveniunt tamen cum poëtis, istud, quicquid vel ad coelos adscendat, vel ad inferos descendat, interdum viuis apparere: ut alio loco docui, & hoc putabant malo magorum carmine euocari . . . .” —Compiler.] ––––––––––

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As to our Kama loka, Ennius, says Lucretius—“has traced the picture of the sacred regions in Acherusia, where dwell neither our bodies nor our souls, but only our simulacra, whose pallidity is dreadful to behold!” It is amongst those shades that divine Homer appeared to him, shedding bitter tears as though the gods had created that honest man for eternal sorrow only. It is from the midst of that world (Kama loka), which seeks with avidity communication with our own, that this third (part) of the poet, his phantom —explained to him the mysteries of nature. . . . .* Pythagoras and Plato both divided soul into two representative parts, independent of each other—the one, the rational soul, or , the other, irrational, —the latter being again subdivided into two parts or aspects, the and the , which, with the divine soul and its spirit and the body, make the seven principles of Theosophy. What Virgil calls imago, “image,” Lucretius names—simulacrum, “similitude” (See De Rerum Natura, Bk. I, 123), but they are all names for one and the same thing, the astral body. We gather thus two points from the ancients entirely corroborative of our esoteric philosophy: (a) the astral or materialized figure of the dead is neither the soul, nor the spirit, nor the body of the deceased personage, but simply the shadow thereof, which justifies our calling it a “shell”; and (b) unless it be an immortal God (an angel) who animates an object, it can never be a spirit, to wit, the SOUL, or real, spiritual ego of a once living man; for these ascend, and an astral shadow (unless it be of a living person) can never be higher than a terrestrial, earth-bound ego, or an irrational shell. Homer was therefore right in

–––––––––– * “etsi praeterea tamen esse Acherusia templa Ennius aeternis exponit versibus edens, quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra, sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris; unde sibi exortam semper florentis Homeri commemorat speciem lacrimas effundere salsas coepisse et rerum naturam expandere dictis.” [De Rerum Natura, Book I, 120-26] ––––––––––

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making Telemachus exclaim, on seeing Ulysses, who, reveals himself to his son: “No, thou art not my father, thou art a demon, a spirit who flatters and deludes me!”

(Odyssey, XVI, 194-95)

It is such illusive shadows, belonging to neither Earth nor Heaven, that are used by sorcerers and other adepts of the Black Art, to help them in persecutions of victims; to hallucinate the minds of very honest and well meaning persons occasionally, who fall victims to the mental epidemics aroused by them for a purpose; and to oppose in every way the beneficent work of the guardians of mankind, whether divine or—human. For the present, enough has been said to show that the Theosophists have the evidence of the whole of antiquity in support of the correctness of their doctrines.

––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII 1897

THE IDOLS AND THE TERAPHIM

[Originally published as Section xxvi, pp. 234-40, in the Volume entitled “The Secret Doctrine, Volume III,” which appeared in print in 1897. See Compiler’s footnote, p. 226 of the present volume. We have indicated by square brackets those passages which occur, either verbatim or with slight alterations, in The Secret Doctrine, I, 394-395; II, 453, 455.]

[The meaning of the “fairy-tale” told by the Chaldean Qû-tâmy is easily understood.] His modus operandi with the “idol of the moon” was that of all the Semites, before Terah, Abraham’s father, made images—the Teraphim, called after him—or the “chosen people” of Israel ceased divining by them. These teraphim were-just as much “idols” as is any pagan image or statue.* The

–––––––––– * That the teraphim was a statue, and no small article either, is shown in I Samuel, xix, where Michal takes a teraphim (“image,” as it is translated) and puts it in bed to represent David, her husband, who ran away from Saul (see verse 13, et seq.). It was thus of the size and shape of a human figure—a statue or real idol. ––––––––––

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injunction “Thou shalt not bow to a graven image,” or teraphim, must have either come at a later date, or have been disregarded, since the bowing-down to and the divining by the teraphim seems to have been so orthodox and general that the “Lord” actually threatens the Israelites, through Hosea, to deprive them of their teraphim. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king. . . . . without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.* Matzebah, or statue, or pillar, is explained in the Bible to mean “without an ephod and without teraphim.” Father Kircher supports very strongly the idea that the statue of the Egyptian Serapis was identical in every way with those of the seraphim, or teraphim, in the temple of Solomon. Says Louis de Dieu: They were, perhaps, images of angels, or statues dedicated to the angels, the presence of one of these spirits being thus attracted into a teraphim and answering the inquirers [consultants]; and in this hypothesis the word “teraphim” would become the equivalent of “seraphim” by changing the “t” into “s” in the manner of Syrians.† What says the Septuagint? The teraphim are translated successively by , —forms in someone’s likeness; eidôlon, an “astral body”; —the sculptured; —sculptures in the sense of containing something hidden, or receptacles; —manifestations; —truths or realities; or —luminous, shining likenesses. The latter expression shows plainly what the teraphim were. The Vulgate translates the term by “annuntiantes,” the “messengers who announce,” and it thus becomes certain that the teraphim were the oracles. They were the animated statues, the Gods who revealed themselves to the masses through the Initiated Priests and Adepts in the Egyptian, Chaldaean, Greek, and other temples.

–––––––––– * Hosea, iii, 4. † Louis de Dieu, Genesis, xxxi, 10. See De Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., 2nd Mémoire, Vol. II, p. 257. ––––––––––

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[As to the way of divining, or learning one’s fate, and of being instructed by the teraphim,* it is explained quite plainly by Maimonides and Seldenus. The former says: The worshippers of the teraphim claimed that the light of the principal stars [planets], penetrating into and filling the carved statue through and through, the angelic virtue [of the regents, or animating principle in the planets] conversed with them, teaching them many most useful arts and sciences.†

–––––––––– * “The Teraphim of Abram’s father, Terah, the ‘maker of images,’ were the Kabeiri gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the Danites, and others. (Judges, xvii, xviii.) Teraphim were identical with the seraphim, and these were serpent-images, the origin of which is in the Sanskrit sarpa (the serpent), a symbol sacred to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the god Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Śiva, the Hindu, as well as Saturn. (The Zendic H is S in India. Thus Hapta is Sapta; Hindu is Sindhaya.—A. Wilder. ‘. . . the S continually softens to H from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt,’ says Dunlap. Therefore the letters K, H, and S are interchangeable.) (J. D. Guigniaut, Les religions de l’antiquite, Vol. I, p. 167.) The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian, having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and from thence to Troy; and they were worshipped far before the days of glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C. From where did Dardanus derive them?”—Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 570. [Remarks and references appearing in parentheses in the above footnote are H.P.B.’s own footnotes appended to this passage in Isis Unveiled.—Compiler.] † Maimonides, Moreh Nebhuchim, III, xxix. [This passage is from Part III, chapter xxix of Moreh Nebhuchim (The Guide of the Perplexed). M. Friedländer’s annotated translation from the original Hebrew (Hebrew Publishing Co., New York, 1881, p. 138 of 3rd Part) is as follows: “In accordance with the Sabean theories (Cf. Chwolson, Nabath. Agric., II, 390, 396) images were erected to the stars, golden images to the sun, images of silver to the moon, and they attributed the metals and the climates to the influences of the planets, saying that a certain planet is the god of a certain zone. They built temples, placed in them images, and assumed that the stars sent forth their influence upon these images, which are thereby enabled to understand, to comprehend, to inspire human beings, and to tell them what is useful to them.” —Compiler.] ––––––––––

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In his turn Seldenus explains the same, adding that the teraphim* were built and fashioned in accordance with the position of their respective planets, each of the teraphim being consecrated to a special “star-angel,” those that the Greeks called stoicheia, as also according to figures located in the sky and called the “tutelary Gods”: Those who traced out the were called or the diviners by the planets and the . †

––––––––––– * Those dedicated to the sun were made in gold, and those to the moon in silver. † De Diis Syriis, Syntagmata I, cap. ii, “De Teraphim Labanis, etc.” [This reference is to a rare work of John Selden (1584-1654) on the “Syrian Deities” (London: G. Stansleius, 1617. 8-vo. British Museum 19735. Also in Opera Omnia. London: Richard Sare, 1726, where the passage quoted can be found in Vol. II, Part I, col. 282). H. P. B. paraphrases part of Selden’s passage and quotes directly the last sentence thereof. The entire passage in its Latin original is as follows: “ . . . . . Aureas faciebant vetustissimi Orientalium Zabii, sive Chaldaei, ey quorum libris plurima retulit R. Moses Aegyptius, & Argenteas effigies. Has Lunae, illas Soli dicebant: & aedificaverunt palatia, ut scribit ille in More Nebochim lib. III, cap. XXIX & posuerunt in eis imagines, & dixerunt quod splendor potentiarum stellarum diffundebatur super illas imagines, & loquebantur cum hominibus, & annunciabant eis utilia. Quod optima cum eis quadrat, qui secundum praecepta astrologia ra Teraphim fieri solita, & ad certos syderum positus, volunt (quemadmodum ea quae Graecis dicuntur) & secundum figuras in coela creditas, uti velut seu averrunci Dii essent, formata. Nec sane quantum ad astrologium rationem spectat, a Teraphim disserunt, nisi quod haec futuris praecidendis, illa arcendis malis fuerint destinata. Qui vero formabant, dicebantur.” In W. A. Hauser’s translation of Selden’s work, published under the title of The Fabulous Gods denounced in the Bible (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1880, 178 pp. 12-vo; Brit. Museum 3103. bb. 22), the following translation of this entire passage can be found (chap. 2, p. 29): “The Zabeans and Chaldeans, the most ancient of Orientals, made golden and silver effigies. The golden ones were dedicated to the sun and the silver ones to the moon. Moses, the Egyptian, says, ‘They built palaces, placed these images in them, and they ––––––––––

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Ammianus Marcellinus states that the ancient divinations were always accomplished with the help of the “spirits” of the elements (spiritus elementorum), or as they are called in Greek * Now the latter are not the “spirits” of the stars [planets], nor are they divine Beings; they are simply the creatures inhabiting their respective elements, called by the Kabalists elementary spirits, and by the Theosophists elementals.† Father Kircher, the Jesuit, tells the reader:

–––––––––– said that the splendor of the most potent stars was diffused among them; and they spoke with men, and announced useful things to them.’ That very much tallies with those who are inclined to believe according to astrological precepts, that they were formed as the Teraphims were, and under certain positions of the stars, in the same manner as those among the Greeks, which were called Stoicheia, or images to drive away evil, and, according to figures, believed to be in heaven, so as if they might be gods to drive away evil. Nor was there much in any astrological reason for a difference in the Stoicheia of the Greeks and the Teraphims of the Hebrews, unless the former were destined to drive away whatever was bad, and the latter for predicting future events.” With minor word modifications, the remarks concerning Maimonides and Seldenus can also be found in The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 394.—Compiler.] * [Reference is here made to Ammianus Marcellinus’ History, Book XXI, chap. i, 8, the original Latin text of the passage being as follows: “8. Elementorum omnium spiritus, utpote perennium corporum praesentiendi motu semper et ubique vigens, ex his, quae per disciplinas varias affectamus, participat nobiscum munera divinandi: et substantiales potestates ritu diverso placatae, velut ex perpetuis fontium venis, vaticina mortalitati suppeditant verba. . .” John C. Rolfe (Loeb Classical Series) translates it as follows: “8. The spirit pervading all the elements, seeing that they are eternal bodies, is always and everywhere strong in the power of prescience, and as the result of the knowledge which we acquire through varied studies makes us also sharers in the gifts of divination; and the elemental powers, when propitiated by divers rites, supply mortals with words of prophecy, as if from the veins of inexhaustible founts.” —Compiler.] † Those that the Kabalists call elementary spirits are sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders, nature-spirits, in short. The spirits of the angels formed a distinct class. ––––––––––

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Every god had such instruments of divination to speak through. Each had his specialty. Serapis gave instruction on agriculture; Anubis taught sciences; Horus advised upon psychic and spiritual matters; Isis was consulted on the rising of the Nile, and so on.* This historical fact, furnished by one of the ablest and most erudite among the Jesuits, is unfortunate for the prestige of the “Lord God of Israel” with regard to his claims to priority and to his being the one living God. Jehovah, on the admission of the Old Testament itself, conversed with his elect in no other way, and this places him on a par with every other Pagan God, even of the inferior classes. In Judges, xvii, we read of Micah having an ephod and a teraphim fabricated, and consecrating them to Jehovah (see the Septuagint and the Vulgate); these objects were made by a founder from the two hundred shekels of silver given to him by his mother. True, King James’ “Holy Bible” explains this little bit of idolatry by saying: In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.† Yet the act must have been orthodox, since Micah, after hiring a priest, a diviner, for his ephod and teraphim, declares: “Now know I that the Lord will do me good.” And if Micah’s act—who Had an house of Gods, and made an ephod and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons‡

–––––––––– * Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Vol. II, Pars Altera, Cl. XI, cap. iii, p. 444. [The original Latin text of this entire passage, according to the ed. of Vitalis Mascardi, Rome, 1653, is as follows: “In omnibus fere Ægypti Nomis Oraculum fuisse reperio, in quo responsa de variis euentibus acciperent consulentes: neque tamen singula Oracula de singulis sibi propositis respondebant; sed de iis solummodò rebus naturae eorum consentaneis. Hoc pacto Serapidis Oraculum circa ea quae terrae cultum concernebant; Anubidis circa ea, quae Scientias; Hori circa ea, quae bona corporis & animae; Isidis circa ea, quae aut Nilum, aut foecunditatem concernebant, consulebatur.” —Compiler.] † [Judges, xvii, 6.] ‡ [Judges, xvii, 5.] ––––––––––

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to their service, as also to that of the “graven image” dedicated “unto the Lord” by his mother—now seems prejudicial, it was not so in those days of one religion and one lip. How can the Latin Church blame the act, since. Kircher, one of her best writers, calls the teraphim “the holy instruments of primitive revelations”; since Genesis shows us Rebecca going “to enquire of the Lord,”* and the Lord answering her (certainly through the teraphim), and delivering to her several prophecies? And if this be not sufficient, there is Saul, who deplores the silence of the ephod,† and David who consults the thummim, and receives oral advice from the Lord as to the best way of killing his enemies. The thummim and urim, however—the object in our days of so much conjecture and speculation—was not an invention of the Jews, nor had it originated with them, despite the minute instruction given about it by Jehovah to Moses. For the priest-hierophant of the Egyptian temples wore a breast-plate of precious stones, in every way similar to that of the high priest of the Israelites. The high-priests of Egypt wore suspended on their necks an image of sapphire, called Truth, the manifestation of truth becoming evident in it. Seldenus is not the only Christian writer who assimilates the Jewish to the Pagan teraphim, and expressed a conviction that the former had borrowed them from the Egyptians. Moreover, we are told by Döllinger, a preëminently Roman Catholic writer: The teraphim were used and remained in many Jewish families to the days of Josiah.‡ As to the personal opinion of Döllinger, a papist, and of Seldenus, a Protestant—both of whom trace Jehovah

–––––––––– * Genesis, xxv, 22, et seq. † The ephod was a linen garment worn by the high priest, but as the thummim was attached to it, the entire paraphernalia of divination was often comprised in that single word, ephod. See I Sam., xxviii, 6, and xxx, 7, 8. ‡ Paganisme et Judaïsme, Vol. IV, p. 197. ––––––––––

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in the teraphim of the Jews and “evil spirits” in those of the Pagans—it is the usual one-sided judgment of odium theologicum and sectarianism. Seldenus is right, however, in arguing that in the days of old, all such modes of communication had been primarily established for purposes of divine and angelic communications only. But

The holy Spirit (spirits, rather) spake [not] to the children of Israel [alone] by urim and thummim, while the tabernacle remained, as Dr. A. Cruden would have people believe. Nor had the Jews alone need of a “tabernacle” for such a kind of theophanic, or divine communication; for no Bath-Kol (or “Daughter of the divine Voice”), called thummim, could be heard whether by Jew, Pagan, or Christian, were there not a fit tabernacle for it. The “tabernacle” was simply the archaic telephone of those days of Magic when Occult powers were acquired by Initiation, just as they are now. The nineteenth century has replaced with an electric telephone the “tabernacle” of specified metals, wood, and special arrangements, and has natural mediums instead of high priests and hierophants. Why should people wonder, then, that instead of reaching Planetary Spirits and Gods, believers should now communicate with no greater beings than elementals and animated shells—the demons of Porphyry? Who these were, he tells us candidly in his work On the Good and Bad Demons; They whose ambition is to be taken for Gods, and whose leader demands to be recognized as the Supreme God.* Most decidedly—and it is not the Theosophists who will ever deny the fact—there are good as well as bad spirits, beneficent and malevolent “Gods” in all ages. The whole trouble was and still is, to know which is which. And this, we maintain, the Christian Church knows no more than her profane flock. If anything

–––––––––– * De abstinentia, II, 41, 42. ––––––––––

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proves this, it is, most decidedly, the numberless theological blunders made in this direction. It is idle to call the Gods of the heathen “devils,” and then to copy their symbols in such a servile manner, enforcing the distinction between the good and the bad with no weightier proof than that they are respectively Christian and Pagan. [The planets—the elements of the Zodiac—have not figured only at Heliopolis as the twelve stones called the “mysteries of the elements” (elementorum arcana). On the authority of many an orthodox Christian writer they were found also in Solomon’s temple, and may be seen to this day in several old Italian churches, and even in Notre Dame of Paris.]

One would really say that the warning in Clement’s Stromateis has been given in vain, though he is supposed to quote words pronounced by St. Peter. He says:

Do not adore God as the Jews do, who think they are the only ones to know Deity and fail to perceive that, instead of God, they are worshipping angels, archangels, the months, and the moon.*

Who after reading the above can fail to feel surprise that, notwithstanding such understanding of the Jewish mistake, the Christians are still worshipping the Jewish Jehovah, the Spirit who spoke through his teraphim! That this is so, and that Jehovah was simply the “tutelary genius,” or spirit, of the people of Israel—only one of the pneumata tôn stoicheiôn (or “great spirits of the elements”), not even a high “Planetary”—is demonstrated on the authority of St. Paul and of Clemens Alexandrinus, if the words they use have any meaning. With the latter, the word signifies not only elements but also

–––––––––– * Stromata, lib. VI, cap. v. [The Latin original of this thought is as follows: “Neque colite ut Judaei: etenim illi, solo se Deum nosse putantes, nesciunt se adorare angelos et archangelos, mensem et lunam. . . .” (Migne, Patr. Curs. Compl., Ser., Lat., 1890)—Comp.] ––––––––––

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Generative cosmological principles, and notably the signs [or constellations] of the Zodiac, of the months, days, the sun and the moon.* The expression is used by Aristotle in the same sense. He says, ,† while Diogenes Laërtius calls , the twelve signs of the Zodiac.‡ Now having the positive evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus to the effect that Ancient divination was always accomplished with the help of the spirits of the elements, § or the same , and seeing in the Bible, numerous passages that (a) the Israelites, including Saul and David, resorted to the same divination, and used the same means; and (b) that it was their “Lord”—namely, Jehovah—who answered them, what else can we believe Jehovah to be than a “spiritus elementorum”? Hence one sees no great difference between the “idol of the moon”—the Chaldaean teraphim through which spoke Saturn—and the idol of urim and thummim, the organ of Jehovah. Occult rites, scientific at the beginning—and forming the most solemn and sacred of sciences—have fallen through the degeneration of mankind into Sorcery, now called “superstition.” As Diodorus Siculus explains in his Historical Library: The Kaldhi, having made long observations on the planets and knowing better than anyone else the meaning of their motions and

–––––––––– * Discourse to the Gentiles, p. 146. [This ref. has not been verified.—Comp.] † De generatione animalium, lib. II, iii. [This refers to Aristotle’s statement concerning a special substance contained in the pneuma, itself contained within the semen of man. He says that “this substance is analogous to the element which belongs to the stars.” According to other notations, the reference is 736b, line 39.—Comp.] ‡ [Ref. in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. IV, p. 77, where the footnote says: Commented on by Ménage, lib. Vl, 101, no definite work by Menage is mentioned, nor any specific ref. to Diogenes Laërtius given.] § [History, Book XXI, chap. i, 8.] –––––––––––

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their influences, predict to people their futurity. They regard their doctrine of the five great orbs—which they call interpreters, and we, planets—as the most important. And though they allege that it is the sun that furnishes them with most of the predictions for great forthcoming events, yet they worship more particularly Saturn . . . Such predictions made to a number of kings, especially to Alexander, Antigonus, Seleucus Nicator, etc., ...... have been so marvellously realized that people were struck with admiration.*

[It follows from the above that the declaration made by Qû-tâmy, the Chaldaean Adept—to the effect that all that he means to impart in his work to the profane had been told by Saturn to the moon, by the latter to her idol, and by that idol, or teraphim, to himself, the scribe—no more implied idolatry than did the practice of the same method by King David. One fails to perceive in it, therefore, either an apocrypha or a “fairy-tale.”] The above-named Chaldaean Initiate lived at a period far anterior to that ascribed to Moses, in whose day the Sacred Science of the sanctuary was still in a flourishing condition. It began to decline only when such scoffers as Lucian had been admitted, and the pearls of the Occult Science had been too often thrown to the hungry dogs of criticism and ignorance.

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–––––––––– * Hist. Libr., Book II, xxix-xxxi.

[The above excerpt from Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliothêkê istorikê is more in the nature of a summary of his description, rather than a direct quote from his text. Especially with regard to the sentence mentioning the Sun and Saturn. C. H. Oldfather’s translation (Loeb Classical Library) of the entire sentence runs as follows (Book II, xxx):

“But above all in importance, they say, is the study of the influence of the five stars known as planets, which they call ‘Interpreters’ when speaking of them as a group, but if referring to them singly, the one named Cronus by the Greeks, which is the most conspicuous and presages more events and such as are of greater importance than the others, they call the star of Helius, whereas the other four they designate as the stars of Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Zeus, as do our astrologers.” —Compiler.]

Collected Writings VOLUME VII December, 1886

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“THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS”

[The Path (New York), Vol. I, No. 9, December, 1886, pp. 257-263]

It is with sincere and profound regret—though with no surprise, prepared as I am for years for such declarations—that I have read in the Rochester Occult Word, edited by Mrs. J. Cables, the devoted president of the T.S. of that place, her joint editorial with Mr. W. T. Brown. This sudden revulsion of feeling is perhaps quite natural in the lady, for she has never had the opportunities given her as Mr. Brown has; and her feeling when she writes that after “a great desire . . . . . to be put into communication with the Theosophical Mahatmas we [they] have come to the conclusion that it is useless to strain the psychical eyes towards the Himalayas . . . . . ” is undeniably shared by many theosophists. Whether the complaints are justified, and also whether it is the “Mahatmas” or theosophists themselves who are to blame for it is a question that remains to be settled. It has been a pending case for several years and will have to be now decided, as the two complainants declare over their signatures that “we [they] need not run after Oriental mystics, who deny their ability to help us.” The last sentence, in italics, has to be seriously examined. I ask the privilege to make a few remarks thereon.

To begin with, the tone of the whole article is that of a true manifesto. Condensed and weeded of its exuberance of Biblical expressions it comes to this paraphrastical declaration: “We have knocked at their door, and they have not answered us; we have prayed for bread, they have denied us even a stone.” The charge is quite serious; nevertheless, that it is neither just nor fair—is what I propose to show. As I was the first in the United States to bring the existence of our Masters into publicity; and, having exposed the holy names of two members of a Brotherhood hitherto unknown to Europe and America (save to a few mystics and Initiates of every age), yet sacred and revered throughout the East, and especially India, causing vulgar speculation and curiosity to grow around those blessed

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names, and finally leading to a public rebuke, I believe it my duty to contradict the fitness of the latter by explaining the whole situation, as I feel myself the chief culprit. It may do good to some, perchance, and will interest some others.

Let no one think withal, that I come out as a champion or a defender of those who most assuredly need no defence. What I intend, is to present simple facts, and let after this the situation be judged on its own merits. To the plain statement of our brothers and sisters that they have been “living on husks,” “hunting after strange gods” without receiving admittance, I would ask in my turn, as plainly: “Are you sure of having knocked at the right door? Do you feel certain that you have not lost your way by stopping so often on your journey at strange doors, behind which lie in wait the fiercest enemies of those you were searching for? Our MASTERS are not “a jealous god”; they are simply holy mortals, nevertheless, however, higher than any in this world, morally, intellectually and spiritually. However holy and advanced in the science of the Mysteries—they are still men, members of a Brotherhood, who are the first in it to show themselves subservient to its time-honoured laws and rules. And one of the first rules in it demands that those who start on the journey Eastward, as candidates to the notice and favors of those who are the custodians of those Mysteries, should proceed by the straight road, without stopping on every sideway and path seeking to join other “Masters” and professors often of the Left-Hand Science, that they should have confidence and show trust and patience, besides several other conditions to fulfill. Failing in all of this from first to last, what right has any man or woman to complain of the liability of the Masters to help them?

Truly “‘The Dwellers of the Threshold’ are within!”

Once that a theosophist would become a candidate for either chelaship or favours, he must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if not formally offered and accepted between the two parties, and, that such a pledge is sacred.

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It is a bond of seven years of probation. If during that time, notwithstanding the many human shortcomings and mistakes of the candidate (save two which it is needless to specify in print) he remains throughout every temptation true to the chosen Master, or Masters (in the case of lay candidates), and as faithful to the Society founded at their wish and under their orders, then the theosophist will be initiated into –––– thenceforward allowed to communicate with his guru unreservedly, all his failings, save this one, as specified, may be overlooked: they belong to his future Karma, but are left for the present, to the discretion and judgment of the Master. He alone has the power of judging whether even during those long seven years the chela will be favoured regardless of his mistakes and sins, with occasional communications with, and from the guru. The latter thoroughly posted as to the causes and motives that led the candidate into sins of omission and commission is the only one to judge of the advisability or inadvisability of bestowing encouragement; as he alone is entitled to it, seeing that he is himself under the inexorable law of Karma, which no one from the Zulu savage up to the highest archangel can avoid—and that he has to assume the great responsibility of the causes created by himself. Thus, the chief and the only indispensable condition required in the candidate or chela on probation, is simply unswerving fidelity to the chosen Master and his purposes. This is a condition sine qua non; not as I have said, on account of any jealous feeling, but simply because the magnetic rapport between the two once broken, it becomes at each time doubly difficult to re-establish it again; and that it is neither just nor fair, that the Masters should strain their powers for those whose future course and final desertion they very often can plainly foresee. Yet, how many of those, who, expecting as I would call it “favours by anticipation,” and being disappointed, instead of humbly repeating mea culpa, tax the Masters with selfishness and injustice. They will deliberately break the thread of connection ten times in one year, and yet expect each time to be taken back on the old lines! I know of one

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theosophist—let him be nameless though it is hoped he will recognize himself—a quiet, intelligent young gentleman, a mystic by nature, who, in his ill-advised enthusiasm and impatience, changed Masters and his ideas about half a dozen times in less than three years. First he offered himself, was accepted on probation and took the vow of chelaship; about a year later, he suddenly got the idea of getting married, though he had several proofs of the corporeal presence of his Master, and had several favours bestowed upon him. Projects of marriage failing, he sought “Masters” under other climes, and became an enthusiastic Rosicrucian; then he returned to theosophy as a Christian mystic; then again sought to enliven his austerities with a wife; then gave up the idea and turned a spiritualist. And now having applied once more “to be taken back as a chela” (I have his letter) and his Master remaining silent—he renounced him altogether, to seek in the words of the above manifesto—his old “Essenian Master and to test the spirits in his name” The able and respected editor of the Occult Word and her Secretary are right, and have chosen the only true path in which with a very small dose of blind faith, they are sure to encounter no deceptions or disappointments. “It is pleasant to some of us,” they say, “to obey the call of the ‘Man of Sorrows’ who will not turn any away because they are unworthy or have not scored up a certain percentage of personal merit.” How do they know? Unless they accept the cynically awful and pernicious dogma of the Protestant Church, that teaches the forgiveness of the blackest crime, provided the murderer believes sincerely that the blood of his “Redeemer” has saved him at the last hour—what is it but blind unphilosophical faith? Emotionalism is not philosophy; and Buddha devoted his long self-sacrificing life to tear people away precisely from that evil breeding superstition. Why speak of Buddha then, in the same breath? The doctrine of salvation by personal merit, and self-forgetfulness is the corner-stone of the teaching of the Lord Buddha. Both the writers may have and very likely they did—“hunt after strange gods”; but these were not our MASTERS. They have “denied Him

“THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS” 245

thrice” and now propose “with bleeding feet and prostrate spirit” to “pray that He [Jesus] may take us [them] once more under His wing,” etc. The “Nazarene Master” is sure to oblige them so far. Still they will be “living on husks” plus “blind faith.” But in this they are the best judges, and no one has a right to meddle with their private beliefs in our Society; and heaven grant that they should not in their fresh disappointment turn our bitterest enemies one day

Yet, to those Theosophists, who are displeased with the Society in general, no one has ever made to you any rash promises; least of all, has either the Society or its founders ever offered their “Masters” as a chromo-premium to the best behaved. For years every new member has been told that he was promised nothing, but had everything to expect only from his own personal merit. The theosophist is left free and untrammeled in his actions. Whenever displeased—alia tentanda via est*—no harm in trying elsewhere; unless, indeed one has offered himself and is decided to win the Masters’ favors. To such especially, I now address myself and ask: Have you fulfilled your obligations and pledges? Have you, who would fain lay all the blame on the Society and the Masters—the latter the embodiment of charity, tolerance, justice and universal love—have you led the life requisite, and the conditions required from one who becomes a candidate? Let him who feels in his heart and conscience that he has—that he has never once failed seriously, never doubted his Master’s wisdom, never sought other Master or Masters in

–––––––––– * [This is an expression often misquoted from Virgil’s Georgics, lib. III, 8-9: ——Temptanta via est, qua me quoque possim Tollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora.

This is translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, in Loeb Classical Series, as:

“I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men.” —Compiler. ––––––––––

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his impatience to become an Occultist with powers; and that he has never betrayed his theosophical duty in thought or deed—let him, I say, rise and protest. He can do so fearlessly; there is no penalty attached to it, and he will not even receive a reproach, let alone be excluded, from the Society—the broadest and most liberal in its views, the most Catholic of all the Societies known or unknown. I am afraid my invitation will remain unanswered. During the eleven years of the existence of the Theosophical Society I have known, out of the seventy-two regularly accepted chelas on probation and the hundreds of lay candidates—only three who have not hitherto failed, and one only who had a full success. No one forces any one into chelaship; no promises are uttered, none except the mutual pledge between Master and the would-be-chela. Verily, verily, many are called but few are chosen—or rather few who have the patience of going to the bitter end, if bitter we can call simple perseverance and singleness of purpose. And what about the Society, in general, outside of India? Who among the many thousands of members does lead the life? Shall any one say because he is a strict vegetarian—elephants and cows are that—or happens to lead a celibate life, after a stormy youth in the opposite direction; or because he studies the Bhagavad-Gita or the “Yoga philosophy” upside down, that he is a theosophist according to the Masters’ hearts? As it is not the cowl that makes the monk, so, no long hair with a poetical vacancy on the brow are sufficient to make of one a faithful follower of divine Wisdom. Look around you, and behold our UNIVERSAL Brotherhood so called! The Society founded to remedy the glaring evils of Christianity, to shun bigotry and intolerance, cant and superstition and to cultivate real universal love extending even to the dumb brute, what has it become in Europe and America in these eleven years of trial? In. one thing only we have succeeded to be considered higher than our Christian Brothers, who, according to Lawrence Oliphant’s graphic expression “Kill one another for Brotherhood’s sake and fight as devils for the love of God”—and this is that we have made away with every dogma and

“THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS” 247

are now justly and wisely trying to make away with the last vestige of even nominal authority. But in every other respect we are as bad as they are: backbiting, slander, uncharitableness, criticism, incessant war-cry and ding of mutual rebukes that Christian Hell itself might be proud of! And all this, I suppose, is the Masters’ fault: THEY will help those who help others on the way of salvation and liberation from selfishness—with kicks and scandals? Truly we are an example to the world, and fit companions for the holy ascetics of the snowy Range! And now a few words more before I close. I will be asked: “And who are you to find fault with us? Are you, who claim nevertheless, communion with the Masters and receive daily favors from Them; Are you so holy, faultless, and so worthy?” To this I answer: I AM NOT. Imperfect and faulty is my nature; many and glaring are my shortcomings—and for this my Karma is heavier than that of any other Theosophist. It is—and must be so––since for so many years I stand set in the pillory, a target for my enemies and some friends also. Yet I accept the trial cheerfully. Why? Because I know that I have, all my faults notwithstanding, Master’s protection extended over me. And if I have it, the reason for it is simply this: for thirty-five years and more, ever since 1851 that I saw my Master bodily and personally for the first time, I have never once denied or even doubted Him, not even in thought. Never a reproach or a murmur against Him has escaped my lips, or entered even my brain for one instant under the heaviest trials. From the first I knew what I had to expect, for I was told that, which I have never ceased repeating to others: as soon as one steps on the Path leading to the Ashrum of the blessed Masters—the last and only custodians of primitive Wisdom and Truth—his Karma, instead of having to be distributed throughout his long life, falls upon him in a block and crushes him with its whole weight. He who believes in what he professes and in his Master, will stand it and come out of the trial victorious; he who doubts, the coward who fears to receive his just dues and tries to avoid justice being done—FAILS. He will not escape

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Karma just the same, but he will only lose that for which he has risked its untimely visits. This is why having been so constantly, so mercilessly slashed by my Karma using my enemies as unconscious weapons, that I have stood it all. I felt sure that Master would not permit that I should perish; that he would always appear at the eleventh hour—and so he did. Three times I was saved from death by Him, the last time almost against my will; when I went again into the cold, wicked world out of love for Him, who has taught me what I know and made me what I am. Therefore, I do His work and bidding, and this is what has given me the lion’s strength to support shocks—physical and mental, one of which would have killed any theosophist who would go on doubting the mighty protection. Unswerving devotion to Him who embodies the duty traced for me, and belief in the Wisdom—collectively, of that grand, mysterious, yet actual Brotherhood of holy men—is my only merit and the cause of my success in Occult philosophy. And now repeating after the Paramaguru—my Master’s MASTER—the words He had sent as a message to those who wanted to make of the Society a “miracle club” instead of a Brotherhood of Peace, Love and mutual assistance—“Perish rather, the Theosophical Society and its hapless Founders,” * I say perish their twelve years’ labour and

–––––––––– * [This sentence occurs in “an abridged version” of the views of the Mahâ-Chohan, “to whom the future lies like an open page,” to quote the words of Master K.H. in his letter to Col. Olcott received by him November 20, 1883, while at Lahore (See Vol. VI of the present Series, pp. 21-28, for facsimile and data). It was Master K. H. himself who reported the views of the Mahâ-Chohan either in 1880 or 1881, the first-mentioned date being given by H. P. B. in Lucifer, Vol. II, August, 1888, p. 431, and the second date being favored by C. Jinarâjadâsa in his editorial comments thereon. The original of this important letter is not extant any longer. The text of it, as far as is known from a copy which was with C. W. Leadbeater, has been published in the Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, pp. 3-11 (Transcribed and Compiled by C. Jinarâjadâsa; 4th ed., 1948). H. P. B. herself quoted rather copious excerpts from it towards the end of her article, “The Theosophical Society: Its Mission ––––––––––

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their very lives rather than that I should see what I do to-day: theosophists, outvying political “rings” in their search for personal power and authority; theosophists slandering and criticizing each other as two rival Christian sects might do; finally theosophists refusing to lead the life and then criticizing and throwing slurs on the grandest and noblest of men, because tied by their wise laws—hoary with age and based on an experience of human nature millenniums old—those Masters refuse to interfere with Karma and to play second fiddle to every theosophist who calls upon Them and whether he deserves it or not. Unless radical reforms in our American and European Societies are speedily resorted to—I fear that before long there will remain but one centre of Theosophical Societies and Theosophy in the whole world—namely, in India; on that country I call all the blessings of my heart. All my love and aspirations belong to my beloved brothers, the sons of old Aryavarta—the Mother-land of my MASTER. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

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–––––––––– and its Future” (Lucifer, Vol. II, August, 1888, pp. 421-433), with but slight alterations of wording here and there. The complete sentence referred to in the text above runs thus:

“. . . . . Rather perish the T. S. with both its hapless founders than that we should permit it to become no better than an academy of magic, a hall of occultism. That we—the devoted followers of the spirit incarnate of absolute self-sacrifice, of philanthropy, divine kindness, as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, Gautama Buddha—should ever allow the T. S. to represent the embodiment of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a strange idea, my brothers. . . .” —Compiler] –––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII December, 1886

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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

[From Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett. London: George Redway, 1886, p. 100]

[This footnote was appended by H. P. B. to that portion of her sister’s narrative, used by A. P. Sinnett in his text, that described the manner in which the genealogy of H. P. B.’s family was reconstructed with the help of occult methods Sinnett says: “This lasted for months. Never during that time were Mme. Blavatsky’s invisible helper or helpers found mistaken in any single instance.” To this H. P. B. remarks:]

Indeed not; for it was neither a “spirit” nor “spirits” but living men who can draw before their eyes the picture of any book or manuscript wherever existing, and in case of need even that of any long forgotten and unrecorded event, who helped “Mme. Blavatsky.” The astral light is the store-house and the record book of all things, and deeds have no secrets for such men. And the proof of it may be found in the production of Isis Unveiled.

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Collected Writings VOLUME VII May, 1892

THE KABALAH AND THE KABALISTS * AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY [Lucifer, Vol. X, No. 57, May, 1892, pp. 185-196]

[A careful analysis of this essay makes it appear most likely that it was written much earlier than the actual date of its publication. While it may not be possible to ascertain its correct date, except for the fact that material quoted therein places it after 1885, its similarity to other material on the same subject suggests that it may have been written around 1886-87 For this reason it has been thought advisable to publish this essay at this point in the chronological sequence of H. P. B.’s writings.—Compiler.] –––––––––– * The spelling of the word is various; some write Cabbalah, others Kabbalah. The latest writers have introduced a new spelling as more consonant with the Hebrew manner of writing the word and make it Qabalah. This is more grammatical, perhaps, but as no Englishman will ever pronounce a foreign name or word but in an Englishified way, to write the term simply Kabalah seems less pretentious and answers as well. [H.P.B.] ––––––––––

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Universal aspirations, especially when impeded and suppressed in their free manifestations, die out but to return with tenfold power. They are cyclic, like every other natural phenomenon, whether mental or cosmic, universal or national. Dam a river in one place, and the water will work its way into another, and break out through it like a torrent. One of such universal aspirations, the strongest perhaps in man’s nature, is the longing to seek for the unknown; an ineradicable desire to penetrate below the surface of things, a thirst for the knowledge of that which is hidden from others. Nine children out of ten will break their toys to see what there is inside. It is an innate feeling and is Protean in form. It rises from the ridiculous (or perhaps rather from the reprehensible) to the sublime, for it is limited to indiscreet inquisitiveness, prying into neighbour’s secrets, in the uneducated, and it expands in the cultured into that love for knowledge which ends in leading them to the summits of science, and fills the Academies and the Royal Institutions with learned men.

But this pertains to the world of the objective. The man in whom the metaphysical element is stronger than the physical, is propelled by this natural aspiration towards the mystical, to that which the materialist is pleased to call a “superstitious belief in the supernatural.” The Church, while encouraging our aspirations after the holy—on strictly theological and orthodox lines, of course—condemns at the same time the human craving after the same, whenever the practical search after it departs from its own lines. The memory of the thousands of illiterate “witches,” and the hundreds of learned alchemists, philosophers and other heretics, tortured, burnt, and otherwise put to death during the Middle Ages, remains as an ever-present witness to that arbitrary and despotic interference.

In the present age both Church and Science, the blindly-believing and the all-denying, are arrayed against the Secret Sciences, though both Church and Science believed in and practised them—especially the Kabalah

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—at a not very distant period of history. One says now, “It is of the devil!” the other that “the devil is a creation of the Church, and a disgraceful superstition”; in short, that there is neither devil nor occult sciences. The first one forgets that it has publicly proclaimed, hardly 400 years ago, the Jewish Kabalah as the greatest witness to the truths of Christianity; * the second, that the most illustrious men of science were all alchemists, astrologers and magicians, witness Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Roger Bacon, etc. But consistency has never been a virtue of Modern Science. It has religiously believed in all which it now denies, and it has denied all that it now believes in, from the circulation of-the blood up to steam and electric power. This sudden change of attitude in both powers cannot prevent events from taking their natural course. The last quarter of our century is witnessing an extraordinary

–––––––––– * This is demonstrated by what we know of the life of John Pico della Mirandola. Ginsburg and others have stated the following facts, namely, that after having studied the Kabalah Mirandola “found that there is more Christianity in the Kabalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire . . . . ,” and so on. In 1486, when only twenty-four years old, he published “nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome [not without the consent or knowledge surely of the Pope and his Government?], and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among these Theses was the following, ‘No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah’.” The reason why will be shown in the present article.

[In the above footnote, H. P. B. quotes from Christian D. Ginsburg’s The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development and Literature, London, Longmans, Green, etc., 1865; also Geo. Routledge and Sons, 1925 (p. 206 in latter ed.). Ginsburg, who gives the Latin text of Mirandola’s own words, gives as references the Index a Jacobo Gaffarello, published by Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, Vol. I, p. 9 at the end of the volume, and Apologia, p. 42, opp. Vol. I, Basel, 1601. —Compiler.] ––––––––––

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outbreak of occult studies, and magic dashes once more its powerful waves against the rocks of Church and Science, which it is slowly but as surely undermining. Anyone whose natural mysticism impels him to seek for sympathetic contact with other minds, is astonished to find how large a number of persons are not only interested in Mysticism generally, but are actually themselves Kabalists. The river dammed during the Middle Ages has flowed since noiselessly underground, and has now burst up as an irrepressible torrent. Hundreds to-day study the Kabalah, where, scarcely one or two could I have been found some fifty years ago, when fear of the Church was still a powerful factor in men’s lives. But the long-pent-up torrent has now diverged into two streams—Eastern Occultism and the Jewish Kabalah; the traditions of the Wisdom-Religion of the races that preceded the Adam of the “Fall”; and the system of the ancient Levites of Israel, who most ingeniously veiled a portion of that religion of the Pantheists under the mask of monotheism. Unfortunately many are called but few chosen. The two systems threaten the world of the mystics with a speedy conflict, which, instead of increasing the spread of the One universal Truth, will necessarily only weaken and impede its progress. Yet, the question is not, once more, which is the one truth. For both are founded upon the eternal verities of prehistoric knowledge, as both, in the present age and the state of mental transition through which humanity is now passing, can give out only a certain portion of these verities. It is simply a question: “Which of the two systems contains most unadulterated facts: and, most important of all—which of the two presents its teachings in the most Catholic (i.e., unsectarian) and impartial manner?” One—the Eastern system—has veiled for ages its profound pantheistic unitarianism with the exuberance of an exoteric polytheism; the other—as said above—with the screen of exoteric monotheism. Both are but masks to hide the sacred truth from the profane; for neither the Âryan nor the Semitic philosophers have ever accepted either

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the anthropomorphism of the many Gods, or the personality of the one God, as a philosophical proposition. But it is impossible within the limits we have at our disposal, to attempt to enter upon a minute discussion of this question. We must be content with a simpler task. The rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law seem to be an abyss, which long generations of Christian Fathers, and especially of Protestant Reformers have vainly sought to fill in with their far-fetched interpretations. Yet all the early Christians, Paul and the Gnostics, regarded and proclaimed the Jewish law as essentially distinct from the new Christian law. St. Paul called the former an allegory, and St. Stephen told the Jews an hour before being stoned that they had not even kept the law that they had received from the angels (the aeons), and as to the Holy Ghost (the impersonal Logos or Christos, as taught at Initiation) they had resisted and rejected it as their fathers had done (Acts, vii). This was virtually telling them that their law was inferior to the later one. Notwithstanding that the Mosaic Books which we think we have in the Old Testament, cannot be more than two or three centuries older than Christianity, the Protestants have nevertheless made of them their Sacred Canon, on a par with, if not higher than, the Gospels. But when the Pentateuch was written, or rather rewritten after Ezdras, i.e., after the Rabbis had settled upon a new departure, a number of additions were made which were taken bodily from Persian and Babylonian doctrines; and this at a period subsequent to the colonization of Judea under the authority of the kings of Persia. This re-editing was of course done in the same way as with all such Scriptures. They were originally written in a secret key, or cipher, known only to the Initiates. But instead of adapting the contents to the highest spiritual truths as taught in the third, the highest, degree of Initiation, and expressed in symbolical language—as may be seen even in the exoteric Purânas of India—the writers of the Pentateuch, revised and corrected, they who cared but for earthly and national glory, adapted only to astro-physiological symbols the supposed events

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of the Abrahams, Jacobs, and Solomons, and the fantastic history of their little race. Thus they produced, under the mask of monotheism, a religion of sexual and phallic worship, one that concealed an adoration of the Gods, or the lower aeons. No one would maintain that anything like the dualism and the angelolatry of Persia, brought by the Jews from the captivity, could ever be found in the real Law, or Books of Moses. For how, in such case, could the Sadducees, who reverenced that law, reject angels, as well as the soul and its immortality? And yet angels, if not the soul’s immortal nature, are distinctly asserted to exist in the Old Testament, and are found in the Jewish modern scrolls.*

This fact of the successive and widely differing redactions of that which we loosely term the Books of Moses, and of their triple adaptation to the first (lowest), second, and third, or highest, degree of Sodalian initiation, and that still more puzzling fact of the diametrically opposite beliefs of the Sadducees and the other Jewish sects, all accepting, nevertheless, the same Revelation—can be made comprehensible only in the light of our Esoteric explanation. It also shows the reason why, when Moses and the Prophets belonged to the Sodalities (the great Mysteries), the latter yet seem so often to fulminate against the abominations of the Sodales and their “Sod.” For had the Old Canon been translated literally, as is claimed, instead of being adapted to a monotheism absent from it, and to the spirit of each sect, as the differences in the Septuagint and Vulgate prove, the following contradictory sentences would be added to the hundreds of other inconsistencies in “Holy Writ.” “Sod Ihoh [the mysteries of Johoh, or Jehovah] are for those who fear him,” says Psalm, xxv, 14, mistranslated “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” Again “Al [El] is terrible in

–––––––––– * This is just what the Gnostics had always maintained quite independently of Christians. In their doctrines the Jewish God, the “Elohim,” was a hierarchy of low terrestrial angels—an Ildabaoth, spiteful and jealous. ––––––––––

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the great Sod of the Kadeshim” is rendered as—“God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints” (Psalms, lxxxix, 7). The title of Kadeshim (Kadosh, sing.) means in reality something quite different from saints though it is generally explained as “priests,” the “holy” and the “Initiated”; for the Kadeshim were simply the galli of the abominable mysteries (Sod) of the exoteric rites. They were, in short, the male Nautches of the temples, during whose initiations the arcanum, the Sod (from which “Sodom,” perchance) of physiological and sexual evolution, were divulged. These rites all belonged to the first degree of the Mysteries, so protected and beloved by David—the “friend of God.” They must have been very ancient with the Jews, and were ever abominated by the true Initiates; thus we find the dying Jacob’s prayer is that his soul should not come into the secret (Sod, in the original) of Simeon and Levi (the priestly caste) and into their assembly during which they “slew a man” (Genesis, xlix, 5, 6).* And yet Moses is claimed by the Kabalists as chief of the Sodales! Reject the explanation of the Secret Doctrine and the whole Pentateuch becomes the abomination of abominations.

Therefore, do we find Jehovah, the anthropomorphic God, everywhere in the Bible, but of AIN SUPH not one word is said. And therefore, also, was the Jewish metrology quite different from the numeral methods of other people. Instead of serving as an adjunct to other prearranged methods, to penetrate therewith as with a key into the hidden or implied meaning contained within the literal sentences—as the initiated Brahmins do to this day, when reading their sacred book—the numeral system with the Jews is, as the author of “Hebrew

–––––––––– * To “slay a man” meant, in the symbolism of the Lesser Mysteries, the rite during which crimes against nature were committed, for which purpose the Kadeshim were set aside. Thus Cain “slays” his brother Abel, who, esoterically, is a female character and represents the first human woman in the Third Race after the separation of sexes. See also the Source of Measures, pp. 253, 283, etc. ––––––––––

INTERIOR AT 17, LANSDOWNE ROAD, LONDON The view of this room is taken from the corner near H. P. B.’s desk. The little round table was used by her for her frugal breakfasts. The painting of Master M. is most likely the copy made by Hermann Schmiechen from his own original, before the latter was taken by Col. H. S. Olcott to Adyar. Reproduced from an old print.

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Metrology” tells us, the Holy Writ itself: “. . . . that very thing, in esse, on which, and out of which, and by the continuous interweaving use of which, the very text of the Bible has been made to result, as its enunciation, from the beginning word of Genesis to the closing word of Deuteronomy.”*

So true is this, indeed, that the authors of the New Testament who had to blend their system with both the Jewish and the Pagan, had to borrow their most metaphysical symbols not from the Pentateuch, or even the Kabalah, but from the Âryan astro-symbology. One instance will suffice. Whence the dual meaning of the First-born, the Lamb, the Unborn, and the Eternal—all relating to the Logos or Christos? We say from the Sanskrit Aja, a word the meanings of which are: (a) the Ram, or the Lamb, the first sign of the Zodiac, called in astronomy Mesha; (b) the Unborn, a title of the first Logos, or Brahma, the self-existent cause of all, described and so referred to in the Upanishads.

The Hebrew Kabalistic Gematria, Notaricon, and T’mura are very ingenious methods, giving the key to the secret meaning of Jewish symbology, one that applied the relations of their sacred imagery only to one side of Nature—namely, the physical side. Their myths and the names and the events attributed to their Biblical personages were made to correspond with astronomical revolutions and sexual evolution, and had nought to do with the spiritual states of man; hence no such correspondences are to be found in the reading of their sacred canon. The real Mosaic Jews of the Sodales, whose direct heirs on the line of initiation were the Sadducees, had no spirituality in them, nor did they feel any need for it apparently. The reader, whose ideas of Initiation and Adeptship are intimately blended with the mysteries of the after-life and soul survival, will now see the reason for the great yet natural inconsistencies found on almost

–––––––––– * [J. Ralston Skinner’s essay on “Hebrew Metrology,” in the Masonic Review, Cincinnati, Vol. 63, July, 1885, p. 323.Compiler.] ––––––––––

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every page of the Bible. Thus, in the Book of Job, a Kabalistic treatise on Egypto-Arabic Initiation, the symbolism of which conceals the highest spiritual mysteries, one finds yet this significant and purely materialistic verse: “Man that is born of a woman is ...... like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not” (xiv, 1, 2). But Job speaks here of the personality, and he is right; for no Initiate would say that the personality long survived the death of the physical body; the spirit alone is immortal. But this sentence in Job, the oldest document in the Bible, makes only the more brutally materialistic that in Ecclesiastes, iii, 19, et seq., one of the latest records. The writer, who speaks in the name of Solomon, and says that “that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even . . . as the one dieth, so dieth the other . . . so that a man hath no preeminence over a beast,” is quite on a par with the modern Haeckels, and expresses only that which he thinks.

Therefore, no knowledge of Kabalistic methods can help one in finding that in the Old Testament which has never been there since the Book of the Law was rewritten (rather than found) by Hilkiah. Nor can the reading of the Egyptian symbols be much helped by the mediæval Kabalistic systems. Indeed, it is but the blindness of a pious illusion that can lead anyone to discover any spiritual and metaphysical correspondences or meaning in the Jewish purely astro-physiological symbology. On the other hand, the ancient pagan religious systems, so-called, are all built upon abstract spiritual speculations, their gross external forms being, perhaps, the most secure veil to hide their inner meaning.

It can be demonstrated, on the authority of the most learned Kabalists of our day that the Zohar, and almost all the Kabalistic works, have passed through Christian hands. Hence, that they cannot be considered any longer as universal, but have become simply sectarian. This is well shown by Pico della Mirandola’s thesis upon the proposition that “no Science yields greater proof of

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the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabalah.” This is true of the divinity of the Logos, or of the Christos of the Gnostics; because that Christos remains the same WORD of the ever-unmanifested Deity, whether we call it Parabrahm or Ain Suph—by whatever name he himself is called—Krishna, Buddha, or Ormazd. But this Christos is neither the Christ of the Churches, nor yet the Jesus of the Gospels; it is only an impersonal Principle. Nevertheless the Latin Church made capital of this thesis; the result of which was, that as in the last century, so it is now in Europe and America. Almost every Kabalist is now a believer in a personal God, in the very teeth of the original impersonal Ain Suph, and is, moreover, a more or less heterodox, but still, a Christian. This is due entirely to the ignorance of most people (a) that the Kabalah (the Zohar especially) we have, is not the original Book of Splendour, written down from the oral teachings of Shimon Ben Yochai; and (b) that the latter, being indeed an exposition of the hidden sense of the writings of Moses (so-called) was as equally good an exponent of the Esoteric meaning contained under the shell of the literal sense in the Scriptures of any Pagan religion. Nor do the modern Kabalists seem to be aware of the fact, that the Kabalah as it now stands, with its more than revised texts, its additions made to apply to the New as much as to the Old Testament, its numerical language recomposed so as to apply to both, and its crafty veiling, is no longer able now to furnish all the ancient and primitive meanings. In short that no Kabalistic work now extant among the Western nations can display any greater mysteries of nature, than those which Ezra and Co., and the later co-workers of Moses de Leon, desired to unfold; the Kabalah contains no more than the Syrian and Chaldean Christians and ex-Gnostics of the thirteenth century wanted those works to reveal. And what they do reveal hardly repays the trouble of passing one’s life in studying it. For if they may, and do, present a field of immense interest to the Mason and mathematician, they can teach scarcely anything to the student hungering after spiritual mysteries.

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The use of all the seven keys to unlock the mysteries of Being in this life, and the lives to come, as in those which have gone by, show that the Chaldean Book of Numbers, and the Upanishads undeniably conceal the most divine philosophy—as it is that of the Universal Wisdom Religion. But the Zohar, now so mutilated, can show nothing of the kind. Besides which, who of the Western philosophers or students has all those keys at his command? These are now entrusted only to the highest Initiates in Gupta-Vidyâ, to great Adepts; and, surely it is no self-taught tyro, not even an isolated mystic, however great his genius and natural powers, who can hope to unravel in one life more than one or two of the lost keys.*

The key to the Jewish metrology has been undeniably unravelled, and a very important key it is. But as we may infer from the words of the discoverer himself in the footnote just quoted—though that key (concealed in the “Sacred Metrology”) discloses the fact that “Holy Writ” contains “a rational science of sober and great worth,” yet it helps to unveil no higher spiritual truth than that

–––––––––– * The writer in the Masonic Review is thus quite justified in saying as he does, that “the Cabalistic field is that in which astrologers, necromancers, black and white magicians, fortune tellers, chiromancers, and all the like, revel and make claims to supernaturalism ad nauseam”; and he adds: “The Christian, quarrying into its mass of mysticism, claims for it support and authority for that most perplexing of all problems, the Holy Trinity, and the portrayed character of Christ . . . With equal assurance, but more effrontery, the knave, in the name of Cabbalah, will sell amulets and charms, tell fortunes, draw horoscopes, and just as readily give specific rules . . . . for raising the dead, and actually—the devil . . . . . Discovery has yet to be made of what Cabbalah really consists, before any weight or authority can be given to the name. On that discovery will rest the question whether the name should be received as related to matters worthy of rational acknowledgment.” “The writer claims that such a discovery has been made, and that the same embraces rational science of sober and great worth.” “The Cabbalah,” from the Masonic Review for September, 1885, pp. 65-66, by Brother J. Ralston Skinner (McMillan Lodge, No. 141). [Italics are H. P. B.’s.] ––––––––––

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which all astrologers have insisted upon in every age; i.e., the close relation between the sidereal and all the terrestrial bodies—human beings included. The history of our globe and its humanities is prototyped in the astronomical heavens from first to last, though the Royal Society of Physicists may not become aware of it for ages yet to come. By the showing of the said discoverer himself, “the burden of this secret doctrine, this Cabbalah, is of pure truth and right reason, for it is geometry with applied proper numbers, of astronomy and of a system of measure, viz., the Masonic inch, the twenty-four inch gauge (or the double foot), the yard, and the mile. These were claimed to be of divine revelation and impartation, by the possession and use of which, it could be said of Abram: ‘Blessed of the Most High God, Abram, measure of heaven and earth’”—the “creative law of measure.”

And is this all that the primitive Kabalah contained? No; for the author remarks elsewhere: “What the originally and intended right reading was [in the Pentateuch] who can tell?” [Ibid., p. 68.] Thus allowing the reader to infer that the meanings implied in the exoteric, or dead letter of the Hebrew texts, are by no means only those revealed by metrology. Therefore we are justified in saying that the Jewish Kabalah, with its numerical methods, is now only one of the keys to the ancient mysteries, and that the Eastern or Âryan system alone can supply the rest, and unveil the whole truth of Creation.*

–––––––––– * Even as it stands now, the Kabalah, with its several methods, can only puzzle by offering several versions; it can never divulge the whole truth. The readings of even the first sentence of Genesis are several. To quote the author: “It is made to be read ‘B’rashith bârâ Elohim,’ etc., ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;’ wherein Elohim is a plural nominative to a verb in the third person singular. Nachmanides called attention to the fact that the text might suffer the reading, ‘B’rash ithbârâ Elohim,’ etc., ‘In the head (source or beginning) created itself (or developed) Gods, the heavens and the earth,’ really a more grammatical rendering.” [Ibid., p. 68.] And yet we are forced to believe the Jewish monotheism! ––––––––––

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What this numeral system is, we leave its discoverer to explain himself. According to him:

Like all other human productions of the kind, the Hebrew text of the Bible was in characters which could serve as sound signs for syllabic utterance, or for this purpose what are called letters. Now in the first place, these original character signs were also pictures, each one of them; and these pictures of themselves stood for ideas which could be communicated,—much like the original Chinese letters. Gustav Seyffarth shows that the Egyptian hieroglyphics numbered over six hundred picture characters, which embraced the modified use, syllabically, of the original number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The characters of the Hebrew text of the Sacred Scroll were divided into classes, in which the characters of each class were interchangeable; whereby one form might be exchanged for another to carry a modified signification, both by letter, and picture and number. Seyffarth shows the modified form of the very ancient Hebrew alphabet in the old Coptic by this law of interchange of characters.* This law of permitted interchange of letters is to be found quite fully set forth in the Hebrew dictionaries . . . Though recognized . . . it is very perplexing and hard to understand, because we have lost the specific use and power of such interchange. [Just so!] In the second place, these characters stood for numbers—to be used for numbers as we use specific number signs —though, also, there is very much to prove that the old Hebrews were in possession of the so-called Arabic numerals, as we have them, from the straight line 1 to the zero characters, together making 1+9=10...... In the third place, it is said, and it seems to be proven, that these characters stood for musical notes; so that for instance, the arrangement of the letters in the first chapter of Genesis, can be rendered musically, or by song.† Another law of the Hebrew characters was that only the consonantal signs were characterized—the vowels were not characterized, but were supplied. If one will try it he will find that a consonant of itself cannot be made vocal without the help of a vowel;‡ therefore . . . . the consonants made

–––––––––– * Before Seyffarth can hope to have his hypothesis accepted, however, he will have to prove that (a) the Israelites had an alphabet of their own when the ancient Egyptians or Copts had as yet none; and (b) that the Hebrew of the later scrolls is the Hebrew, or “mystery language” of Moses, which the Secret Doctrine denies. [H. P. B.] † Not the Hebrew helped by the Masoretic signs, at all events. See further on, however. [H.P.B.] ‡ And therefore as the vowels were furnished ad libitum by the Masorets they could make of a word what they liked! [H.P.B.] ––––––––––

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the framework of a word, but to give it life or utterance into the air, so as to impart the thought of the mind, and the feeling of the heart, the vowels had to be supplied.*

Now, even if we suppose, for argument’s sake, that the “framework,” i.e., the consonants of the Pentateuch are the same as in the days of Moses, what changes must have been effected with those scrolls—written in such a poor language as the Hebrew, with its less than two dozens of letters—when re-written time after time, and its vowels and points supplied in ever-new combinations! No two minds are alike, and the feelings of the heart change. What could remain, we ask, of the original writings of Moses, if such ever existed, when they had been lost for nearly 800 years and then found when every remembrance of them must have disappeared from the minds of the most learned, and Hilkiah has them re-written by Shaphan, the scribe? When lost again, they are re-written again by Ezra; lost once more in 168 B.C. the volume or scrolls were again destroyed; and when finally they reappear, we find them dressed in their Masoretic disguise! We may know something of Ben Chajim,† who published the Masorah of the scrolls in the fifteenth century; we can know nothing of Moses, this is certain, unless we become—Initiates of the Eastern School. Ahrens, when speaking of the letters so arranged in the Hebrew sacred scrolls—that they were of themselves musical notes—had probably never studied Âryan Hindû music. In the Sanskrit language there is no need to so arrange letters in the sacred ollas that they should become musical. For the whole Sanskrit alphabet and the Vedas, from the first word to the last, are musical notations reduced to writing, and the two are inseparable.‡ As

–––––––––– * [Ibid., Masonic Review, September, 1885, p. 67.] † [Vide Bio-bliogr. Index under JACOB BEN HAYYIM.] ‡ See The Theosophist, Vol. I, November, 1879, article “Hindu Music,” pp. 46-50. ––––––––––

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Homer distinguished between the “language of Gods” and the language of men,* so did the Hindus.

The Devanâgarî—the Sanskrit characters—is the “Speech of the Gods” and Sanskrit the divine language.† As to the Hebrew let the modern Isaiahs cry “Woe is me!” and confess that which “the newly-discovered mode of language (Hebrew metrology) veiled under the words of the sacred Text” has now clearly shown. Read the Source of Measures, read all the other able treatises on the subject by the same author. And then the reader will find that with the utmost good-will and incessant efforts covering many years of study, that laborious scholar, having penetrated under the mask of the system, can find in it little more than pure anthropomorphism. In man, and on man, alone, rests the whole scheme of the Kabalah, and to man and his functions, on however enlarged a scale, everything in it is made to apply. Man, as the Archetypal Man or Adam, is made to contain the whole Kabalistic system. He is the great symbol and shadow, thrown by the manifested Kosmos, itself the

–––––––––– * Thes. xiv. 289, 290. [It is uncertain what is meant here by Thes., unless it be some Thesaurus of classical languages or antiquities. However, the following passages in Homer mention several names as being used either by gods or by men respectively; Iliad, I, 403; XIV, 290-91; XX, 73; Odyssey, X, 305; XII, 61.—Compiler.] † The Sanskrit letters are three times as numerous as the poor twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are all musical and are read, or rather chanted, according to a system given in very old Tantrika works (see Tantra Shâstras); and are called Devanâgarî “the speech or language of the Gods.” And since each answers to a numeral, and has therefore a far larger scope for expression and meaning, it must necessarily be far more perfect and far older than the Hebrew, which followed the system, but could apply it only in a very limited way. If either of the two languages were taught to humanity by the Gods, surely it is rather Sanskrit—the perfect of the most perfect languages on Earth—than Hebrew, the roughest and the poorest. For once we believe in a language of divine origin, we can hardly believe at the same time that angels or Gods or any divine messenger should have selected the inferior in preference to the superior. ––––––––––

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reflection of the impersonal and ever incomprehensible principle; and this shadow furnishes by its construction—the personal grown out of the impersonal—a kind of objective and tangible symbol of everything visible and invisible in the Universe. “As the First Cause was utterly unknown and unnamable, such names as were adopted as most sacred [in Bible and Kabalah] and commonly made applicable to the Divine Being, were, after all, not so,”* but were mere manifestations of the unknowable, such

. . . . In a cosmic or natural sense, as could become known to man. Hence these names were not so sacred as commonly held, inasmuch as with all created things they themselves were but names or enunciations of things known . . . . As to metrology: Instead of a valuable adjunct to the Biblical system . . . the entire text of the Holy Writ, in the Mosaic books, is not only replete with it, as a system, but the system itself is that very thing, in esse. . . .† from the first to the last word.

. . . . For instance, the narratives of the first day, of the six days, of the seventh day, of the making of Adam, male and female, of Adam in the Garden, of the Garden itself, of the formation of the woman out of the man, of the extension of the time to the flood with the genealogy, of Ararat, of the Ark, of Noah with his dove and raven, of the space and incidents of Abram’s travel from Ur of the Chaldeans down into Egypt before Pharaoh, of Abram’s life, of the three covenants, . . . of the construction of the Tabernacle and the dwelling of Jehovah, of the famous 603,550 as the number of men capable of bearing arms who made, with their families the exodus out of Egypt and the like—all are but so many modes of enunciation of this system of geometry, of applied number ratios, of measures and their various applications. . . . . ‡ And the author of “Hebrew Metrology” ends by saying:

Whatever may have been the Jewish mode of complete interpretation of these books, the Christian Church has taken them for what

–––––––––– * [J. R. Skinner’s essay on “Hebrew Metrology,” Masonic Review, July, 1885, p. 324.] † [Ibid, pp. 324 and 323 resp.] ‡ [Ibid., p. 323.] –––––––––––

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they show on their first face—and that only . . . The Christian Church has never attributed to these books any property beyond this; and herein has existed its great error.*

But the Western European Kabalists, and many of the American (though luckily not all), claim to correct this error of their Church. How far do they succeed and where is the evidence of their success? Read all the volumes published on the Kabalah in the course of this century; and if we except a few volumes issued recently in America, it will be found that not a single Kabalist has penetrated even skin deep below the surface of that “first face.” Their digests are pure speculation and hypotheses and—no more. One bases his glosses upon Ragon’s Masonic revelations; another takes Fabre d’Olivet† for his prophet—this writer having never been a Kabalist, though he was a genius of wonderful, almost miraculous, erudition, and a polyglot linguist greater than whom there was since his day none, even among the philologists of the French Academy, which refused to take notice of his work. Others, again, believe that no greater Kabalist was born among the sons of men than the late Éliphas Lévi—a charming and witty writer, who, however, has more mystified than taught in his many volumes on Magic. Let not the reader conclude from these statements that real, learned Kabalists are not to be found in the Old and New Worlds. There are initiated Occultists, who are Kabalists, scattered hither and thither, most undeniably, especially in Germany and Poland. But these will not publish what they know, nor will they call themselves –––––––––– * [This, however, is the closing paragraph of J. R. Skinner’s article on “The Cabbalah,” and not the one on “Hebrew Metrology.”—Compiler.] † [Fabre d’Olivet is mentioned by H.P.B. many times in her various writings, sometimes approvingly and at other times critically. Because of the marked influence he has exercized upon the minds of many students, especially in Europe, it has been thought advisable to include in the present Volume a fairly comprehensive survey of his life and work. Vide the Bio-Bibliographical Index, s.v. FABRE D’OLIVET.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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Kabalists. The “Sodalian oath” of the third degree holds good now as ever.

But there are those who are pledged to no secrecy. Those writers are the only ones on whose information the Kabalists ought to rely, however incomplete their statements from the standpoint of a full revelation, i.e., of the sevenfold Esoteric meaning. It is they who care least for those secrets after which alone the modern Hermetist and Kabalist is now hungering such as the transmutation into gold, and the Elixir of Life, or the Philosopher’s Stone––for physical purposes. For all the chief secrets of the Occult teachings are concerned with the highest spiritual knowledge. They deal with mental states, not with physical processes and their transformations. In a word, the real, genuine Kabalah, the only original copy of which is contained in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, pertains to, and teaches about, the realm of spirit, not that of matter.

What, then, is the Kabalah, in reality, and does it afford a revelation of such higher spiritual mysteries? The writer answers most emphatically NO. What the Kabalistic keys and methods were, in the origin of the Pentateuch and other sacred scrolls and documents of the Jews now no longer extant, is one thing; what they are now is quite another. The Kabalah is a manifold language; moreover, one whose reading is determined by the dead-letter face text of the record to be deciphered. It teaches and helps one to read the Esoteric real meaning hidden under the mask of that dead letter; it cannot create a text or make one find in the document under study that which has never been in it from the beginning. The Kabalah—such as we have it now—is inseparable from the text of the Old Testament, as remodelled by Ezra and others. And as the Hebrew Scriptures, or their contents, have been repeatedly altered—notwithstanding the ancient boast that not one letter in the Sacred Scroll, not an iota, has ever been changed—so no Kabalistic methods can help us by reading in it anything besides what there is in it. He who does it is no Kabalist, but a dreamer.

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Lastly, the profane reader should learn the difference between the Kabalah and the Kabalistic works, before he is made to face other arguments. For the Kabalah is no special volume, nor is it even a system. It consists of seven different systems applied to seven different interpretations of any given Esoteric work or subject. These systems were always transmitted orally by one generation of Initiates to another, under the pledge of the Sodalian oath, and they have never been recorded in writing by any one. Those who speak of translating the Kabalah into this or another tongue may as well talk of translating the wordless signal-chants of the Bedouin brigands into some particular language. Kabalah, as a word, is derived from the root Kbl (Kebel) “to hand over,” or “to receive” orally. It is erroneous to say, as Kenneth Mackenzie does in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia [p. 399], that “ the doctrine of the Kabbalah refers to the system handed down by oral transmission, and is nearly allied to . . . . tradition”; for in this sentence the first proposition only is true, while the second is not. It is not allied to “tradition” but to the seven veils or the seven truths orally revealed at Initiation. Of these methods, pertaining to the universal pictorial languages—meaning by “pictorial” any cipher, number, symbol, or other glyph that can be represented, whether objectively or subjectively (mentally)—three only exist at present in the Jewish system.* Thus, if Kabalah as a word is Hebrew, the system itself is no more Jewish than is sunlight; it is universal. On the other hand, the Jews can claim the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Creation), Sepher Dzeniuta, and a few others, as their own undeniable property and as Kabalistic works. H.P.B.

–––––––––– * Of these three not one can be made to apply to purely spiritual metaphysics. One divulges the relations of the sidereal bodies to the terrestrial, especially the human; the other relates to the evolution of the human races and the sexes; the third to Kosmotheogony and is metrological. ––––––––––

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COMPILER’S NOTES

As many students are unfamiliar with Kabbalistic literature, it has been deemed advisable to append the following succinct information for their benefit. As the subject is a very vast one, only essential data have been included. The Zohar, known also as the Midrash ha-Zohar and Sepher ha-Zohar, meaning “Splendour,” is the great storehouse of ancient Hebrew Theosophy, supplemented by the philosophical doctrines of mediaeval Jewish Rabbis. Together with the Sepher Yetzirah, or “Book of Formation,” one of the most ancient Kabbalistic works, the collection of the Zohar represents the oldest extant treatises on the Hebrew esoteric doctrines. It consists of several distinct but interrelated tracts, each discussing some special branch of the subject; each of these tracts consists again of several portions, and contains a kernel of ancient teachings, around which are clustered comments and explanations written by several hands and at very different epochs. There is considerable evidence to show that the kernel of these doctrines is of very remote antiquity, and embodies the remnants of one of the oldest systems of philosophy that have come down to us. Sufficient proof exists to connect some of these tenets with the period of the return from the Babylonian captivity, as they bear the impress of the still more ancient Chaldaean secret lore. The Zohar is largely a mystical and allegorical commentary on the Pentateuch. Together with various Appendices that must have been added to the collection at some later time, it deals with a large number of subjects, such as Ain Soph, the Emanations, the Sephirôth, Adam Kadmon, the Revolution of Souls (Gilgulîm), the use of numbers and letters, the casting of lots, good and evil, etc. The largest portion of this collection is written in one of the Aramaic dialects; other portions are in Hebrew; the presence of still other dialects adds greatly to the difficulties of an accurate translation. Tradition current among mediaeval Rabbis assigned the authorship of the Zohar to Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, who lived in the reign of the Roman Emperor Titus, A.D. 70-80, and was one of the most important Tannaïm in the post-Hadrianic period. He was born in Galilee, and died at Meron, near Safid, in Palestine, where his traditional tomb is shown. His principal teacher was Akiba, whose Academy at Bene-Berak he attended for a good many years. Ordained after Akiba’s death by Judah ben Baba, he escaped from Jerusalem during the violent struggle of the Jews with the Romans, and hid himself in a cave for thirteen years. It is here that Shimon ben Yohai, a profound Kabbalist already, was instructed, according to tradition, by the prophet Elias himself. In his turn, he taught his disciples, Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Abba, who committed to writing those traditional teachings of the earlier Tannaïm which in

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later ages became known as the Zohar. After his seclusion, Shimon ben Yohai settled in Galilee and founded a school of his own, gaining the reputation of a wonder-worker. He was sent to Rome with Eleazar ben Jose, to obtain the repeal of imperial orders which had forbidden certain Jewish ceremonial observances, and returned after a successful mission. While the name of Shimon ben Yohai is associated with the history of the Zohar, it is nevertheless certain that a very large portion of this compilation is not older than approximately 1280, when it was edited in manuscript form by Moses ben Shem-Tob de Leon. The latter was a famous Kabbalistic writer born at Leon, Spain, about 1250, and who lived in Guadalajara, Valladolid and Avila, and died at Arevalo, in 1305. Familiar with the mediaeval mystical literature, he was especially conversant with the writings of Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol (Avicebron), Judah ha-Levi, and Maimonides. Apart from his work on the Zohar, he is known for other dissertations, among them the Ha-Nephesh ha-’hokhmah (Basel, 1608), which deals with the human soul as a likeness of its heavenly prototype, and with the transmigration of souls. He led a wandering life, and was a man of brilliant intellect and lofty religious idealism. It is most likely that Moses de Leon was the first one to produce the Zohar as a whole, but many of its constituent portions date from the time of Shimon ben Yohai and the Second Temple, even though historical evidence is not forthcoming of the many steps in the course of transmission of these doctrines from ante-Roman times. The Zohar in its present Hebrew form was first printed at Mantua (1558-60) and Cremona (1558); only one MSS. of it is in existence prior to the first edition; another edition appeared at Lublin, in 1623. Baron Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-89), a very able and searching Hebrew scholar, translated several treatises of the Zohar into Latin, and published them, together with the Hebrew text under the title of Kabbalah Denudata (Vol. I, Sulzbach, 1677-78; Vol. II, Frankfurt, 1684). C. Liddell MacGregor Mathers published under the title of The Kabbalah Unveiled (London: George Redway, 1887. 8vo., viii, 359 pp.) an English translation of three of these treatises: the Siphra di-Zeni’uta, or “Book of the Concealed Mystery,” the Idra Rabbah, or “Greater Holy Assembly,” and the Idra Zuta, or “Lesser Holy Assembly,” together with an original introduction on the subject. Other important treatises making part of the Zohar are: “The Hidden Midrash,” “The Mysteries of the Pentateuch,” “The Faithful Shepherd,” “The Secret of Secrets,” “Discourses of the Aged in Mishpatim,” “Yanuka, or the Child,” and the “Aesh Metzareph,” the latter dealing with alchemical ideas. Selected portions of the Zohar have been translated into French by Jean de Pauly, and published by Éliphas Lévi as Le Livre des

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Splendeurs (Paris, 1894); and into English by Harry Sperling and M. Simon (5 vols., London, 1931-34). Translations of selected passages can also be found in the most valuable and rare work of Isaac Myer, Qabbalah. The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol or Avicebron (Philadelphia, 1888, xxiv, 499 pp.), important especially on account of its extensive historical Introductory. H.P.B. herself reviewed it at considerable length (Lucifer, Vol. III, February, 1889, pp. 505-512; vide later volumes of the present Series). In connection with the above general subject, the student may be referred to the following works: Adolf Jellinek, Moses ben Schemtob de Leon und seine Verhältniss zum Sohar, Leipzig, 1851; E. Müller, Der Sohar und seine Lehre, 2nd ed., 1923; C. D. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah: Its doctrines, development, and literature, London and Liverpool, 1866; Adolphe Franck, La Kabbale, Paris, 1843 (Eng. tr., Leipzig, 1844); and A. E. Waite, The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, London, 1902; and Secret Doctrine in Israel, London, 1913. As to the Sepher Yetzirah, or “Book of Formation,’ it is reputed to be the oldest known Kabbalistic work, attributed by tradition to Abraham himself, as also to Akiba. It deals with permutations of numbers and letters, and is our first source for the doctrine of emanations and the sephirôth. It is written in the Neo-Hebraic of the Mishnab, and is unquestionably of very ancient orgin. The editio princeps is that of Mantua, 1562, with several subsequent ones. The text and commentary by Dunash ben Tamim have been published by M. Grossberg, London, 1902, and parts of it have been translated by W. Wynn Westcott, London, l893.—See also the translation of P. Davidson, Loudsville, Ga., and Glasgow, Scotland, 1896. ––––––––––

The earlier issues of several Theosophical periodicals contain valuable essays on the subject of the Kabala in general, as well as various particular aspects of this profound study. In H. P. B.’s days, several renowned Kabalists wrote for Theosophical publications. Among these essays, the following deserve special mention, and are listed here for the benefit of the earnest student: Buck, Dr. J. D.: “The Cabbalah,” The Theosophist, Vol. V, Nov., 1883, pp. 44-45; seems to imply that J. Ralston Skinner had one or more unpublished MSS. in his possession. Lazarus, Montague R.: “The Kabbala and the Microcosm,” The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, Sept., 1887, pp. 767-74; Vol. IX, Oct. Nov., Dec., 1887, pp. 45-52, 119-124, 167-171 respectively. Copious excerpts from rare Kabalistic works; valuable as a correlation between Hebrew, Hindu and Greek views of the constitution of man. Pratt, Dr. Henry: “About the Kabbalah,” The Theosophist Vol. X, Aug., 1889, pp. 649-61; “ Eloistic Mysteries,” ibid.,

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Vol. XII, July, 1891, pp. 591-99; Vol. XIII, Nov., 1891, Jan., Feb., Apr., 1892, pp. 77-86, 244-251, 293-296, 418-25 respectively. Chamier, D.: “The Kabalah and its Doctrine,” The Theosophist, Vol. XXIV, Nov., 1902, pp. 90-97. Pancoast, Dr. Seth: “Kabbalah,” The Path, Vol. I, April, 1886, pp. 8-14; “The Mystery of Numbers,” ibid., May, 1886, pp. 37-41. Skinner, J. Ralston: “Notes on the Cabbalah of the Old Testament,” The Path, Vol. I, July and Aug, 1886, pp. 103-108, 134-139 respectively. Westcott, W. Wynn: “The Kabalah,” Lucifer, Vol. VIII, Aug., 1891, pp. 465-69; Vol. IX, Sept., 1891, pp. 27-32; “A Further Glance at the Kabalah,” ibid., Vol. XII, April and May, 1893, pp. 147-53, 202-208 respectively. Leiningen, C. de: “The Soul according to the Quabalah.” Transl. from the German by Thomas Williams; orig. published in the Sphinx. Issued in London, 1890, as Theosophical Siftings, Vol. II, No. 18. Saper Aude: “Some Anomalies in the Biblical Views of the Constitution of Man,” issued in 1893 as Theos. Siftings, Vol. V, No. 16. Wirth, Oswald: “Qabbalah,” Le Lotus, Vol. III, Jan., 1889, pp. 625-32; text in French.

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Collected Writings VOLUME VII August, 1896

FRAGMENTS [Lucifer, Vol. XVIII, No. 108, August, 1896, pp. 449-455]

[These brief notes from H.P.B.’s pen on a number of unrelated subjects appear from their context to have been written much earlier than the actual date of their publication. Some passages in them are almost identical with certain sentences in Isis Unveiled. Material concerning Bunsen can be found verbatim in the First Draft of The Secret Doctrine. It is most likely that these notes belong to the period of 1885-86, and are for this reason published at this particular point of the chronological series.—Compiler.] IDOLATRY

The outward form of idolatry is but a veil, concealing the one Truth like the veil of the Saitic Goddess. Only that truth, being for the few, escapes the majority. To

FRAGMENTS 273

the pious profane, the veil recovers a celestial locality thickly peopled with divine beings, dwarfs and giants, good and wicked powers, all of whom are no better than human caricatures. Yet, while for the great majority the space behind the veil is really impenetrable—if it would but confess the real state of its mind—those, endowed with the “third eye” (the eye of Siva), discern in the Cimmerian darkness and chaos a light in whose intense radiance all shape born of human conception disappears, leaving the all-informing divine PRESENCE, to be felt—not seen; sensed—never expressed.

A charming allegory translated from an old Sanskrit manuscript illustrates this idea admirably:

Toward the close of the Pralaya (the intermediate period between two “creations” or evolutions of our phenomenal universe), the great IT, the One that rests in infinity and ever is, dropped its reflection, which expanded in limitless Space, and felt a desire to make itself cognizable by the creatures evolved from its shadow. The reflection assumed the shape of a Mahârâja (great King). Devising means for mankind to learn of his existence, the Mahârâja built of the qualities inherent in him a palace, in which he concealed himself, satisfied that people should perceive the outward form of his dwelling. But when they looked up to the place where stood the palace, whose one corner stretched into the right, and the other into the left infinitude—the little men saw nothing; the palace was mistaken by them for empty space, and being so vast remained invisible to their eyes. Then the Mahârâja resorted to another expedient. He determined to manifest himself to the little creatures whom he pitied—not as a whole but only in his parts. He destroyed the palace built by him from his manifesting qualities, brick by brick, and began throwing the bricks down upon the earth one after the other. Each brick was transformed into an idol, the red ones becoming Gods and the grey ones Goddesses; into these the Devatâs and Devatîs—the qualities and the attributes of the Unseen––entered and animated them.

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This allegory shows polytheism in its true light and that it rests on the One Unity, as does all the rest. Between the Dii majores and the Dii minores there is in reality no difference. The former are the direct, the latter the broken or refracted, rays of one and the same Luminary. What are Brahmâ, Vishnu and Śiva, but the triple Ray that emanates directly from the Light of the World? The three Gods with their Goddesses are the three dual representations of Purusha the Spirit, and Prakriti—matter; the six are synthesized by Svâyambhuva the self-existent, unmanifested Deity. They are only the symbols personifying the Unseen Presence in every phenomenon of nature.

AVATÂRAS

“The seven [regions]* of Bhûmi, hang by golden threads [beams or rays] from the Spiritual central Sun [or ‘God’]. Higher than all, a Watcher for each [region]. The Suras come down this [beam]. They cross the six and reach the Seventh [our earth]. They are our mother earth’s [Bhûmi] supporters [or guardians]. The eighth watches over the [seven] watchers.”

Suras are in the Vedas deities, or beings, connected with the Sun; in their occult meaning they are the seven chief watchers or guardians of our planetary system. They are positively identical with the “Seven Spirits of the Stars.” The Suras are connected in practical Occultism with the Seven Yogic powers. One of these, Laghima(n) or “the faculty of assuming levity,” is illustrated in a Purâna as rising and descending along a sunbeam to the solar orb with its mysteries; e.g., Khatvânga, in Vishnu-Purâna (Book IV, ch. iv). “It must be equally easy to the adept to travel a ray downwards,” remarks Fitzedward Hall

–––––––––– * In every ancient cosmography the universe and the earth are divided into seven parts or regions. ––––––––––

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(p. 311).* And why not, if the action is understood in its right and correct sense?

Eight great Gods are often reckoned, as there are eight points of the compass, four cardinal and four intermediate points over which preside also inferior Lokapâlas or the “doubles” of the greater Gods. Yet, in many instances where the number eight is given, it is only a kind of exoteric shell. Every globe, however, is divided into seven regions, as 7 x 7 = 49 is the mystic number par excellence. To make it clearer: in each of the seven Root-Races, and in every one of the seven regions into which the Occult Doctrine divides our globe, there appears from the dawn of Humanity the “Watcher” assigned to it in the eternity of the Aeon. He comes first in his own “form,” then each time as an Avatâra.

INITIATIONS

In a secret work upon the Mysteries and the rites of Initiation, in which very rough but correct prints are given of the sacramental postures, and of the trials to which the postulant was subjected, the following details are found: (1) The neophyte—representing the Sun, as “Sahasrakirana,” “ he of the thousand rays”—is shown kneeling before the “Hierophant.” The latter is in the act of cutting off seven locks of the neophyte’s long hair,* and in

–––––––––– * [Reference is to H. H. Wilson’s translation of this Purâna, ed. by Fitzedward Hall. London: Trübner & Co., 1864, etc.—Compiler.] † See Judges, xvi, again, where Samson, the symbolical personification of the Sun, the Jewish Hercules, speaks of his seven locks which, when cut off, will deprive him of his (physical) strength, i.e., kill the material man, leaving only the spiritual. But the Bible fails to explain, or rather, conceals purposely, the esoteric truth, that the seven locks symbolize the septenary physical or terrestrial man, thus cut off and separated from the spiritual. To this day the High Lamas cut off during public consecrations a lock of the hair of the candidates for the religious life, repeating a formula to the effect that the six others will follow, when the “upâsaka” IS READY. The lock of hair or tonsure of the Roman Catholic priests is a relic of the same mystery-idea. ––––––––––

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the following—(2)—illustration, the postulant’s bright crown of golden beams is thrown off, and replaced by a wreath of sharp ligneous spines, symbolizing the loss.* This was enacted in India. In trans-Himâlayan regions it was the same.

In order to become a “perfect One,” the Sakridâgâmin (“he who will receive new birth,” lit.) had, among other trials, to descend into Pâtâla, the “nether world,” after which process only he could hope to become an “Anâgâmin”—“one who will be reborn no more.” The full Initiate had the option of either entering this second Path by appearing at will in the world of men under a human form, or he could choose to first rest in the world of Gods (the Devachan of the Initiates), and then only be reborn on this our earth. Thus, the next stage shows the postulant preparing for this journey.

(3) Every kind of temptation—we have no right to enumerate these or speak of them—was being placed on his way. If he came out victorious over these, then the further Initiation was proceeded with; if he fell—it was delayed, often entirely lost for him. These rites lasted seven days.

ON CYCLES AND MODERN FALLACIES

The Hermetic axiom has been made good by astronomy and geology. Science has become convinced now that the milliards of heavenly hosts—suns, stars, planets, the systems in and beyond the Milky Way—have all had a common origin, our earth included. Nevertheless that a regular evolution, incessant and daily, is still going on.

–––––––––– * No need of explaining that Sañjñâ—pure spiritual conscience— is the inner perception of the neophyte (or chela) and Initiate; the scorching of it by the too ardent beams of the Sun being symbolical of the terrestrial passions. Hence the seven locks are symbolical of the seven cardinal sins, and as to the seven cardinal virtues—to be gained by the Sakridâgâmin (the candidate “for new birth”) they could be attained by him only through severe trial and suffering. ––––––––––

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. . . . Cosmic life-times have begun at different epochs, and proceed at different rates of change. Some began so far back in eternity or have proceeded at so rapid a rate, that their careers are brought to a conclusion in the passing age. Some are even now awaking into existence; and it is probable that worlds are beginning and ending continually. Hence cosmic existence, like the kingdoms of organic life, presents a simultaneous panorama of a completed cycle of being. A taxonomic arrangement of the various grades of animal existence presents a succession of forms which we find repeated in the embryonic history of a single individual, and again in the succession of geological types; so the taxonomy of the heavens is both a cosmic embryology and a cosmic palaeontology.*

So much for cycles again in modern orthodox science. It was the knowledge of all these truths––scientifically demonstrated and made public now, but in those days of antiquity occult and known to Initiates alone—that led to the formation of various cycles into a regular system. The grand Manvantaric system was divided into other great cycles; and these in their turn into smaller cycles, regular wheels of time, in Eternity. Yet no one outside of the sacred precincts ever had the key to the correct reading and interpretation of cyclic notation, and therefore even the ancient classics disagreed on many points. Thus, Orpheus is said to have ascribed to the “Great” Cycle 120,000 years’ duration, and Cassandrus 136,000, according to Censorinus (De Die Natali, Chron. and Astron. Fragments).† Analogy is the law, and is the

–––––––––– * Alexander Winchell, World Life: or, Comparative Geology, pp. 538-39. † [Reference is here made to Chapter XVIII of Censorinus’ work, the passage in question being as follows: “. . . . Est praeterea annus, quem Aristoteles maximum potius, quam magnum, adpellat: quem Solis. Lunae, vagarumque quinque stellarum orbes conficiunt, cum ad idem signum, ubi quondam simul fuerunt, una referuntur, cujus anni hiems summa est , quam nostri diluvionem vocant; aestas autem , quod est mundi incendium. Nam his alternis temporibus mundus tum exignescere, tum exaquescere videtur. Hunc Aristarchus putavit esse annorum vertentium duum millium cccclxxxiv; Aretes Dyrrachinus, quinque millium DLII; Heraclitus et Linus, decem millium cc ∞; Dion, X.M.CC ∞ XXCIV; Orpheus, ––––––––––

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surest guide in occult sciences, as it ought to be in the natural philosophy made public. It is perhaps mere vanity that prevents modern science from accepting the enormous periods of time insisted upon by the ancients, as elapsed since the first civilizations. The miserable little fragment torn out from the Book of the universal History of Mankind, now called so proudly “Our History,” forces historians to dwarf every period in order to wedge it in within the narrow limits primarily constructed by theology. Hence the most liberal among them hesitate to accept the figures given by ancient historians. Bunsen, the eminent Egyptologist, rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which Diogenes Laërtius carries back the records of the priests, but he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations they must have extended over 10,000 years.” “We learn,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works . . . . . that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period, treated of myriads of years.” * We must notice and try to explain some of these great and smaller cycles and their symbols. Let us begin with the cycle of Mahâyuga, personified by Śesha—the great serpent called “the couch of Vishnu,” because that God is Time and Duration personified in the most philosophical and often poetical way. It is said that Vishnu appears on it at the beginning of every Manvantara as “the Lord of Creation.” Śesha is the great Serpent-Cycle, represented as swallowing its own tail—thence the emblem of Time within Eternity. Time, says Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding)—Time is “duration set forth by measures,” and Śesha

–––––––––– CMXX; Cassandrus, tricies sexies centum millium. Alii vero infinitum est, nec unquam in se revertilium. . . .” —Compiler.] * Egypt’s Place in Universal History, Vol. I, pp. 14 and 15 resp. [The italics are H. P. B.’s.] ––––––––––

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sets forth evolution by symbolizing its periodical stages. On him Vishnu sleeps during the intervals of rest (pralayas) between “creations”; the blue God—blue because he is space and the depth of infinity—awakens only when Śesha bends his thousand heads, preparing to again bear up the universe which is supported on them. The Vishnu-Purâna describes him thus:

Below the seven Pâtâlas is the form of Vishnu, proceeding from the quality of darkness, which is called Śesha, the excellencies of which neither Daityas nor Dânavas can (fully) enumerate. This being is called Ananta [the infinite] by the spirits of heaven (Siddha) [Yoga Wisdom, sons of Dharma, or true religion], and is worshipped by sages and by gods. He has a thousand heads, which are embellished with the pure and visible mystic sign [Swastika]; and the thousand jewels in his crests (phana) give light to all the regions . . . . . In one hand he holds a plough,* and, in the other, a pestle . . . . . From his mouths, at the end of the Kalpa, proceeds the venomed fire that, impersonated as Rudra [Śiva, the “destroyer”] . . . . . devours the three worlds.†

Thence Śesha is the cycle of the great Manvantara, and also the spirit of vitality as of destruction, since Vishnu, as the preserving or conservative force, and Śiva as the destroying potency, are both aspects of Brahma. Śesha is said to have taught the sage Garga—one of the oldest astronomers in India, whom, nevertheless, Bentley places only 548 B. C.—the secret sciences, the mysteries of the heavenly bodies, of astrology, astronomy and various omens. Śesha is so great and mighty, that it is more than likely he will some day, in far off future ages, render the same service to our modern astronomers. Nothing like “Time” and cyclic changes to cure sceptics of their blindness.

But Occult truths have to contend with a far more blind foe than science can ever be to them, namely, the

–––––––––– * An emblem referring to the “ploughing” and sowing the renewed earth (in its new Round) with fresh seeds of life. † H. H. Wilson, Vishnu-Purâna. Ed. by Fitzedward Hall; Book II, chap. v, p. 211. ––––––––––

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Christian theologians and bigots. These claim unblushingly the number of years lived by their Patriarchs some four thousand years ago, and pretend to prove that they have interpreted “the symbolic predictions of scripture” and have “traced the historic fulfilment of two of the most important of them”—handling Biblical chronology as reverently as though it had never been a rehash of Chaldaean records and cyclic figures, to hide the true meaning under exoteric fables! They speak of “that history that unrolls before our eyes a record extending over six thousand years” from the moment of creation; and maintain that there are “very few of the prophetic periods whose fulfilment cannot be traced in some parts of the scrolls.” (The Approaching End of the Age.)

Moreover they have two methods and two chronologies to show those events verified—the Roman Catholic and the Protestant. The first relies on the calculations of Kepler and Dr. Sepp; the latter on Clinton, who gives the year of the Nativity as A.M. 4138; the former holds to the old calculation of 4320 by lunar, and 4004 by solar years.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII April, 1887

“LIFE OF PARACELSUS” 283

FOOTNOTES TO THE LIFE OF PARACELSUS

[Early in 1887, Dr. Franz Hartmann published his valuable work on The Life of Paracelsus and the Substance of his Teachings (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.). This book must have appeared before April, 1887, as it is mentioned in that month’s issue of The Path, New York (Vol. II, p. 21). H.P.B. contributed to it the following footnotes which appear on pages 30, 45, 46 and 69 respectively.

The first one is appended to the definition of the technical term Acthna, which Dr. Hartmann defines as “an invisible, subterrestrial fire, being the matrix from which bituminous substances take their origin, and sometimes producing volcanic eruptions. It is a certain state of the ‘soul’ of the earth, a mixture of astral and material elements, perhaps of an electric or magnetic character.” To this H.P.B. says:]

It is an element in the life of the “great snake” Vasuki, that according to Hindu mythology encircles the world, and by whose movements earthquakes may be produced.

[The second footnote is appended to the definition of the term Acthnici, as being “elemental spirits of fire; spirits of Nature. They may appear in various shapes, as fiery tongues, balls of fire, etc. They are sometimes seen in ‘ spiritual séances’.” To this H.P.B. says:]

They are the Devas of fire in India, and bulls were sometimes sacrificed to them.

[The third footnote appears in connection with Paracelsus’ definition and description of the Yliaster:]

The Yliaster of Paracelsus corresponds to the “+<” of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and it was Aristotle who spoke first of the form in potentia before it could appear in actu—the former being called by him “the privation of matter.”

[The fourth footnote has reference to Paracelsus’ ideas concerning the evolution of all beings from the elements :]

This doctrine preached 300 years ago is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought after having been put into a new shape and elaborated by

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Darwin; and is still more elaborated by the Indian Kapila, in the Sankhya philosophy.

[The last footnote is appended by H.P.B. to Paracelsus’ description of his ideas concerning the oneness of Man and the Universe, and of how the one reflects the other:]

This doctrine of Paracelsus is identical with the one taught by the ancient Brahmins and Yogis of the East; but it may not necessarily be derived from the latter, for an eternal truth may as well be recognised by one seer as by another, in the East as well as in the West, and two or more spiritually enlightened persons may perceive the same truth independently of each other, and describe it—each one in his own manner. The terms Microcosm and Macrocosm are identical in their meaning with the Microprosopos and Macroprosopos, or the “Short-face” and “Long-face,” of the Kabala.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII April, 1887

CLASSIFICATION OF “PRINCIPLES”

[The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, No. 91, April, 1887, pp. 448-456]

In a most admirable lecture by Mr. T. Subba Row on the Bhagavad Gita, published in the February number of The Theosophist,* the lecturer deals, incidentally as

–––––––––– * [This lecture is part of a series of lectures delivered by T. Subba Row under the general title of Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ. The introductory lecture of this series was given by him at the Anniversary Convention at Adyar, December, 1885, and was published in The Theosophist, Vol. VII, February, 1886, pp. 281-85. The four actual lectures—of which the one referred to and quoted from by H.P.B. in the present article is the First—were delivered a year later, namely, at the Anniversary Convention at Adyar, December 27-31, 1886. They appeared originally in The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, February, March, April and July, 1887. They were published later in book-form by Tookaram Tatya, Bombay, 1888, though some omissions occur in this edition. The best edition of this entire Series is the one published by Theosophical University Press, Point Loma, California, 1934, which incorporates corrections in the text which T. Subba Row himself considered necessary at the time (see The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, May, 1887, p. 511).—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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I believe, with the question of septenary “principles” in the Kosmos and Man. The division is rather criticized, and the grouping hitherto adopted and favoured in theosophical teachings is resolved into one of Four.

This criticism has already given rise to some misunderstanding, and it is argued by some that a slur is thrown on the original teachings. This apparent disagreement with one whose views are rightly held as almost decisive on occult matters in our Society is certainly a dangerous handle to give to opponents who are ever on the alert to detect and blazon forth contradictions and inconsistencies in our philosophy. Hence I feel it my duty to show that there is in reality no inconsistency between Mr. Subba Row’s views and our own in the question of the septenary division; and to show, (a) that the lecturer was perfectly well acquainted with the septenary division before he joined the Theosophical Society; (b) that he knew it was the teaching of old Aryan “philosophers [who] have associated seven occult powers with the seven principles” in the Macrocosm and the Microcosm (see the end of this article); and (c) that from the beginning he had objected—not to the classification but to the form in which it was expressed. Therefore, now, when he calls the division “unscientific and misleading,” and adds that “this sevenfold classification is almost conspicuous by its absence in many [not all?] of our Hindu books,” etc., and that it is better to adopt the time-honoured classification of four principles, Mr. Subba Row must mean only some special orthodox books, as it would be impossible for him to contradict himself in such a conspicuous way.

A few words of explanation, therefore, will not be altogether out of place. For the matter of being “conspicuous by its absence” in Hindu books, the said classification is as conspicuous by its absence in Buddhist books. This, for a reason transparently clear: it was always esoteric; and as such, rather inferred than openly taught. That it is “misleading” is also perfectly true; for the great feature of the day—materialism—has led the minds of our Western theosophists into the

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prevalent habit of viewing the seven principles as distinct and self existing entities, instead of what they are—namely, upadhis and correlating states—three upadhis, basic groups, and four principles. As to being “unscientific,” the term can be only attributed to a lapsus linguae, and in this relation let me quote what Mr. Subba Row wrote about a year before he joined the Theosophical Society in one of his ablest articles, “Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man,” the best review that ever appeared of the “Fragments of Occult Truth”—since embodied in Esoteric Buddhism. Says the author:—

I have carefully examined it [the teaching], and find that the results arrived at (in the Buddhist doctrine) do not seem to differ much from the conclusions of our Aryan philosophy, though our mode of stating the arguments may differ in form.

Having enumerated after this the “three primary causes” which bring the human being into existence—i.e., Parabrahman, Śakti and Prakriti—he explains:

Now, according to the adepts of ancient Aryavarta, seven principles are evolved out of these three primary entities. Algebra teaches us that the number of combinations of n things taken one at a time, two at a time, three at a time, and so forth=2n—1.

Applying this formula to the present case, the number of entities evolved from different combinations of these three primary causes amounts to 23 – 1=8 – 1=7.

As a general rule, whenever seven entities are mentioned in the ancient occult sciences of India, in any connection whatsoever, you must suppose that those seven entities came into existence from three primary entities; and that these three entities again are evolved out of a single entity or MONAD. (See Five Years of Theosophy, p. 160.)*

–––––––––– * [The important essay of T. Subba Row quoted from by H.P.B. was originally published in The Theosophist, Vol. III, January, 1882, pp. 93-99, with additional notes and footnotes by H.P.B. herself. The title of this essay was: “The Aryan-Arhat Esoteric Tenets on the Sevenfold Principle in Man.” Five Years of Theosophy, as is well known, is mainly a collection of important articles and essays culled from the pages of The Theosophist. Subba Row’s essay with all the footnotes and Editorial Notes by H.P.B. will be found in Volume III of the present Series.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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This is quite correct, from the occult standpoint, and also kabbalistically, when one looks into the question of the seven and ten Sephiroths, and the seven and ten Rishis, Manus, etc. It shows that in sober truth there is not nor can there be any fundamental disagreement between the esoteric philosophy of the Trans- and Cis-Himalayan Adepts. The reader is referred, moreover, to the earlier pages of the above-mentioned article, in which it is stated that

. . . . . the knowledge of the occult powers of nature possessed by the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis was learnt by the ancient adepts of India and was appended by them to the esoteric doctrine taught by the residents of the sacred Island [now the Gobi desert]*. The Tibetan adepts, however [their precursors of Central Asia], have not accepted this addition. . . . . (pp. 155-56) .

But this difference between the two doctrines does not include the septenary division, as it was universal after it had originated with the Atlanteans, who, as the Fourth Race, were of course an earlier race than the Fifth—the Aryan. Thus, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, the remarks made on the Septenary Division in the “Bhagavad-Gita” Lecture hold good to-day, as they did five or six years ago in the article “Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man,” their apparent discrepancy notwithstanding. For purposes of purely theoretical esotericism, they are as valid in Buddhist as they are in Brahmanical philosophy. Therefore, when Mr. Subba Row proposes to hold to “the time-honoured classification of four principles” in a lecture on a Vedanta work—the Vedantic classification, however, dividing man into “five kosas” (sheaths) and the Atma (the six nominally of course),† he simply shows thereby that he desires to remain strictly within theoretical and metaphysical, and

–––––––––– * See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 600, and the appendices by the Editor [H.P.B.] to the above-quoted article in Five Years of Theosophy. † This is the division given to us by Mr. Subba Row. See Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 185-86, article signed T.S. ––––––––––

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also orthodox computations of the same. This is how I understand his words, at any rate. For the Taraka Raja-Yoga classification is again three upadhis, the Atma being the fourth principle, and no upadhi, of course, as it is one with Parabrahm. This is again shown by himself in a little article called “Septenary Division in Different Indian Systems.” * Why then should not “Buddhist” Esotericism, so-called, resort to such a division? It is perhaps “misleading”—that is admitted; but surely it cannot be called “unscientific.” I will even permit myself to call that adjective a thoughtless expression, since it has been shown to be on the contrary very “scientific” by Mr. Subba Row himself; and quite mathematically so, as the afore-quoted algebraic demonstration of the same proves it. I say that the division is due to nature herself pointing out its necessity in kosmos and man; just because the number seven is “a power, and a spiritual force” in its combination of three and four, of the triangle and the quaternary. It is no doubt far more convenient to adhere to the fourfold classification in a metaphysical and synthetical sense, just as I have adhered to the threefold classification—of body, soul and spirit—in Isis Unveiled, because had I then adopted the septenary division, as I have been compelled to do later on for purposes of strict analysis, no one would have understood it, and the multiplication of principles, instead of throwing light upon the subject, would have introduced endless confusion. But now the question has changed, and the position is different. We have unfortunately—for it was premature—opened a chink in the Chinese wall of esotericism, and we cannot now close it again, even if we would. I for one had to pay a heavy price for the indiscretion, but I will not shrink from the results. I maintain then, that when once we pass from the plane of pure subjective reasoning on esoteric matters to that of practical demonstration in Occultism, wherein

–––––––––– * Ibid., pp. 185-86. ––––––––––

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each principle and attribute has to be analysed and defined in its application to the phenomena of daily and especially of post-mortem life, the sevenfold classification is the right one. For it is simply a convenient division which prevents in no wise the recognition of but three groups—which Mr. Subba Row calls “four principles associated with four upadhis, which are further associated in their turn with four distinct states of consciousness.”* This is the Bhagavad-Gita classification, it appears; but not that of the Vedanta, nor—what the Raja-Yogis of the pre-Aryasangha schools and of the Mahayana system held to, and still hold beyond the Himalayas, and their system is almost identical with the Taraka Raja-Yoga—the difference between the latter and the Vedanta classification having been pointed out to us by Mr. Subba Row in his little article on the “Septenary Division in Different Indian Systems.” The Taraka Raja-Yogis recognize only three upadhis in which Atma may work, which, in India, if I mistake not, are the Jagrata, or waking state of consciousness (corresponding to the Sthulopadhi); the Svapna, or dreaming state (in Sukshmopadhi), and the Sushupti, or causal state, produced by, and through Karanopadhi, or what we call Buddhi. But then, in transcendental states of Samadhi, the body with its linga sarira, the vehicle of the life-principle, is entirely left out of consideration: the three states of consciousness are made to refer only to the three (with Atma the fourth)

––––––––––– * A crowning proof of the fact that the division is arbitrary and varies with the schools it belongs to, is in the words published in “Personal and Impersonal God “ by Mr. Subba Row, where he states that “. . . . we have six states of consciousness, either objective or subjective . . . . and a state of perfect unconsciousness. . . . . ” (See Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 200-201). Of course those who do not hold to the old school of Aryan and Arhat Adepts are in no way bound to adopt the septenary classification. [Subba Row’s article mentioned above was published in The Theosophist, Vol. IV, February and March, 1883, pp. 104-05 and 183-89 respectively. The quotation in the text to which the above footnote is appended is from his “Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita,” The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, Feb., 1887, p. 301.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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principles which remain after death. And here lies the real key to the septenary division of man, the three principles coming in as an addition only during his life.

As in the Macrocosm, so in the Microcosm; analogies hold good throughout nature. Thus the universe, our solar system, our earth down to man, are to be regarded as all equally possessing a septenary constitution—four superterrestrial and superhuman, so to say; three objective and astral. In dealing with the special case of man, only, there are two standpoints from which the question may be considered. Man in incarnation is certainly made up of seven principles, if we so term the seven states of his material, astral, and spiritual framework, which are all on different planes. But if we classify the principles according to the seat of the four degrees of consciousness, these upadhis may be reduced to four groups.* Thus his consciousness, never being centred in the second or third principles—both of which are composed of states of matter (or rather of “substance”) on different planes, each corresponding to one of the planes and principles in Kosmos—is necessary to form links between the first, fourth, and fifth principles, as well as subserving certain vital and psychic phenomena. These latter may be conveniently classified with the physical body under one head, and laid aside during trance (Samadhi), as after death, thus leaving only the traditional exoteric and metaphysical four. Any charge of contradictory teaching, therefore, based on this simple fact, would obviously be wholly invalid; the classification. of principles as septenary or quaternary depending

–––––––––– * Mr. Subba Row’s argument that in the matter of the three divisions of the body “we may make any number of divisions . . . . [and] may as well enumerate nerve-force, blood, and bones,” is not valid, I think. Nerve-force—well and good, though it is one with the life principle and proceeds from it; as to blood, bones, etc., these are objective material things, and one with, and inseparable from the human body; while all the other six principles are in their Seventh—the body—purely subjective principles, and therefore all denied by material science, which ignores them. ––––––––––

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wholly on the standpoint from which they are regarded, as said. It is purely a matter of choice which classification we adopt. Strictly speaking, however, occult—as also profane—physics would favour the septenary one for these reasons.* There are six Forces in Nature: this in Buddhism as in Brahmanism, whether exoteric or esoteric, and the seventh—the all-Force, or the absolute Force, which is the synthesis of all. Nature again in her constructive activity strikes the key-note to this classification in more than one way. As stated in the third aphorism of Sankhya-karika of Prakriti—“the root and substance of all things,” she (Prakriti, or nature) is no production, but herself a producer of seven things, “which, produced by her, become all in their turn producers.” Thus all the liquids in nature begin, when separated from their parent mass, by becoming a spheroid (a drop); and when the globule is formed, and it falls, the impulse given to it transforms it, when it touches ground, almost invariably into an equilateral triangle (or three), and then into an hexagon, after which out of the corners of the latter begin to be formed squares or cubes as plane figures. Look at the natural work of nature, so to speak, her artificial, or helped production—the prying into her occult workshop by science. Behold the coloured rings of a soap-bubble, and those produced by

–––––––––– * In that most admirable article of his, “Personal and Impersonal God”—one which has attracted much attention in the Western Theosophical circles, Mr. Subba Row says, “Just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the solar system exists in seven different conditions. These different states of matter do not all come within the range of our present objective consciousness. But they can be objectively perceived by the spiritual ego in man. . . . . Further, Prajña or the capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter. Strictly speaking, there are but six states of matter, the so-called seventh state being the aspect of Cosmic matter in its original undifferentiated condition. Similarly there are six states of differentiated Prajña, the seventh state being a condition of perfect unconsciousness. By differentiated Prajña, I mean the condition in which Prajña is split up into various states of consciousness. Thus we have six states of consciousness, etc., etc.” (Five Years of Theosophy, p. 200). This is precisely our Trans-Himalayan Doctrine. ––––––––––

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polarized light. The rings obtained, whether in Newton’s soap-bubble, or in the crystal through the polarizer, will exhibit invariably six or seven rings—a black spot surrounded by six rings, or a circle with a plane cube inside, circumscribed with six distinct rings, the circle itself the seventh. The “Norremberg” polarizing apparatus throws into objectivity almost all our occult geometrical symbols, though physicists are none the wiser for it. (See Newton’s and Tyndall’s experiments.)* The number seven is at the very root of occult Cosmogony and Anthropogony. No symbol to express evolution from its starting to its completion points would be possible without it. For the circle produces the point; the point expands into a triangle, returning after two angles upon itself, and then forms the mystical Tetraktis—the plane cube; which three when passing into the manifested world of effects, differentiated nature, become geometrically and numerically 3 + 4 = 7. The best kabbalists have been demonstrating this for ages ever since Pythagoras, and down to the modern mathematicians and symbologists, one of whom has succeeded in wrenching forever one of the seven occult keys, and has proven his victory by a volume of figures. Set any of our theosophists interested in the question to read the wonderful work called Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures;† and those of them who are good mathematicians will remain aghast before the revelations contained in it. For it shows indeed that occult source of the measure by which were built kosmos and man, and then by the latter the great Pyramid of Egypt, as all the towers, mounds, obelisks, cave-temples of` India, and pyramids in Peru and Mexico, and all the archaic monuments; symbols in stone of Chaldea, both Americas, and even of the Easter Island

––––––––––– * One need only open Webster’s Dictionary and examine the snow flakes and crystals at the word “Snow” to perceive nature’s work. “God geometrizes,” says Plato. † [By J. Ralston Skinner. Cincinnati: R. Clarke & Co., 1875; 2nd ed., with Supplement, ibid., 1894; 3rd ed., Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1931.] ––––––––––

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—the living and solitary witness of a submerged prehistoric continent in the midst of the Pacific Ocean. It shows that the same figures and measures for the same esoteric symbology existed throughout the world; it shows in the words of the author that the kabbala is a “whole series of developments based upon the use of geometrical elements; giving expression in numerical values, founded on integral values of the circle” (one of the seven keys hitherto known but to the Initiates), discovered by Peter Metius* in the 16th century, and re-discovered by the late John A. Parker.† Moreover, that the system from whence all these developments were derived “was anciently considered to be one resting in nature (or God), as the basis or law of the exertions practically of creative design”; and that it also underlies the Biblical structures, being found in the measurements given for Solomon’s temple, the ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark, etc., etc.,—in all the symbolical myths, in short, of the Bible.

And what are the figures, the measure in which the sacred Cubit is derived from the esoteric Quadrature, which the Initiates know to have been contained in the Tetraktis of Pythagoras? Why, it is the universal primordial symbol. The figures found in the Ansated Cross of Egypt, as (I maintain) in the Indian Swastika, “the sacred sign” which embellishes the thousand heads of ∠esha, the Serpent-cycle of eternity, on which rests Vishnu, the deity in Infinitude; and which also may be pointed out in the threefold (treta) fire of Puraravas, the first fire in the present Manvantara, out of the forty-nine (7 x 7) mystic fires. It may be absent from many of the Hindu books, but the Vishnu and other Puranas teem with this symbol and figure under every possible form, which I mean to prove in the SECRET DOCTRINE. The author of the Source of Measures

–––––––––– * [Probably Adriaan A. Metius is meant here. Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index under METIUS.—Compiler.] † Of Newark, in his work The Quadrature of the Circle, his “problem of the three revolving bodies” (New York: John Wiley and Son, 1851). –––––––––––

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does not, of course, himself know as yet, the whole scope of what he has discovered. He applies his key, so far, only to the esoteric language and the symbology in the Bible, and the Books of Moses especially. The great error of the able author, in my opinion, is, that he applies the key discovered by him chiefly to post-Atlantean and quasi-historical phallic elements in the world religions; feeling, intuitionally, a nobler, a higher, a more transcendental meaning in all this—only in the Bible—and a mere sexual worship in all other religions. This phallic element, however, in the older pagan worship related, in truth, to the physiological evolution of the human races, something that could not be discovered in the Bible, as it is absent from it (the Pentateuch being the latest of all the old Scriptures). Nevertheless, what the learned author has discovered and proved mathematically, is wonderful enough, and sufficient to make our claim good: namely, that the figures and 3+4= 7, are at the very basis, and are the soul of cosmogony and the evolution of mankind.

To whosoever desires to display this process by way of symbol, says the author speaking of the ansated cross, the Tau of the Egyptians and the Christian cross—

. . . . . it would be by the figure of the cube unfolded, in connection with the circle, whose measure is taken off onto the edges of the cube. (The cube unfolded becomes, in superficial display, a cross proper, or of the tau form, and the attachment of the circle to this last gives the ansated cross of the Egyptians, with its obvious meaning of the origin of measures.)* Because, also, this kind of measure was made to coordinate with the idea of the origin of human life, it was secondarily made to assume the type of the pudenda hermaphrodite, and, in fact,

–––––––––– * And, by adding to the cross proper + the symbol of the four cardinal points and infinity at the same time, thus , the arms pointing above, below, and right, and left, making six in the circle—the Archaic sign of the Yomas—it would make of it the Swastika, the “sacred sign” used by the order of “Ishmael masons,” which they call the Universal Hermetic Cross, and do not understand its real wisdom, nor know its origin. [H.P.B.] ––––––––––

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it is placed by representation to cover this part of the human person in the Hindu form.

It is “the hermaphrodite Indranse Indra, the nature goddess, the Issa of the Hebrews, and the Isis of the Egyptians,” as the author calls them in another place.

It is very observable that, while there are but 6 faces to a cube, the representation of the cross as the cube unfolded as to the cross-bars, displays one face of the cube as common to two bars, counted as belonging to either; then, while the faces originally represented are but 6, the use of the two bars counts the square as 4 for the upright and 3 for the cross-bar, making 7 in all. Here we have the famous 4, 3 and 7. The four and three are the factor members of the Parker [quadrature and of the “three revolving bodies”] problem. . . . . (pp. 50-51).

And they are the factor members in the building of the Universe and MAN. Wittoba—an aspect of Krishna and Vishnu—is therefore the “man crucified in space,” or the “cube unfolded,” as explained (See Edward Moor’s The Hindoo Pantheon, for Wittoba).* It is the

–––––––––– * [The facsimile of the picture in E. Moor’s valuable work is reproduced herewith from its first edition (plate 98), published in London in 1810. The “New Edition,” edited by the Rev. W. O. Simpson, and published in 1864, fails to reproduce it, and the Reverend Editor says in a footnote (p. 283) that “this subject, a crucifix, is omitted in the present edition, for very obvious reasons,” leaving the reader to surmise what such “reasons” may have been. In speaking of the same picture elsewhere, H.P.B. refers the student to page 174 (fig. 72) of Dr. J. P. Lundy’s Monumental Christianity, where a facsimile of it can be found. Dr. Lundy says (p. 173): “I do not venture to give it a name, other than that of a crucifixion in space. It looks like a Christian crucifix in many respects, and in some others it does not. The drawing, the attitude, and the nail-marks in hands and feet, indicate a Christian origin; while the Parthian coronet of seven points, the absence of the wood and of the usual inscription, and the rays of glory above, would seem to point to some other than a Christian origin. Can it be the Victim-Man, or the Priest and Victim both in one, of the Hindu mythology, who offered himself a sacrifice before the worlds were? Can it be Plato’s second God who impressed himself on the universe in the form of the cross? Or is it his divine man who would be scourged, tormented, fettered, have his eyes burnt out; and lastly, having suffered all manner of evils, would be crucified? (Republic, c. ii, p. 52, Spens’ Trans.).”

(footnote continued on p. 297)

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oldest symbol in India, now nearly lost, as the real meaning of Viś vakarma and Vikartana (the “sun shorn of his beams”) is also lost. It is the Egyptian ansated cross, and vice versa, and the latter—even the sistrum, with its cross-bars—is simply the symbol of the Deity as man—however phallic it may have become later, after the submersion of Atlantis. The ansated cross is of course, as Professor Seyffarth has shown—again the six with its head—the seventh. Seyffarth says: “ It represents, as I now ank. Hence we have the Coptic believe, the skull with the brains, ank, vita, properly anima, which the seat of the soul, and with the corresponds with the Hebrew , nerves extending to the spine, anosh, properly meaning anima. back, and eyes or ears. For the This is the primitive for Tanis stone translates it (the personal pronoun I). The repeatedly by anthropos (man), Egyptian Anki signifies my soul.”* and this very word is alphabetically written (Egyptian)

It means in its synthesis, the seven principles, the details coming later. Now the ansated cross, as given above, having been discovered on the backs of gigantic statues found on the Easter Island (mid-Pacific Ocean) which is a part of the submerged continent; this remnant being described as “thickly studded with cyclopean statues, remnants of the civilization of a dense and cultivated people”;—and Mr. Subba Row having told us what he –––––––––– (footnote concluded from p. 295) Edward Moor wrote regarding this subject: “A man, who was in the habit of bringing me Hindu deities, pictures, etc., once brought me two images exactly alike: one of them is engraved in Plate 98, and the subject of it will be at once seen by the most transient glance. Affecting indifference, I inquired of the Pundit what Deva it was; he examined it attentively, and after turning it about for some time, returned it to me, professing his ignorance of what Avatara it could immediately relate to; but supposed, by the hole in the foot, that it might be Wittoba . . . .” Moor himself thought it to be of Christian origin, while Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis, I, pp. 145-146) considered it to be a genuine Wittoba.—Compiler.] * Quoted in Source of Measures, p. 53. ––––––––––

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had found in the old Hindu books, namely, that the ancient Adepts of India had learned occult powers from the Atlanteans (vide supra)—the logical inference is that they had their septenary division from them, just as our Adepts from the “Sacred Island” had. This ought to settle the question. And this Tau cross is ever septenary, under whatever form—it has many forms, though the main idea is always one. What are the Egyptian oozas (the eyes) the amulets called the “mystic eye,” but symbols of the same? There are the four eyes in the upper row and the three smaller ones in the lower. Or again, the ooza with the seven luths hanging from it, “the combined melody of which creates one man,” say the hieroglyphics. Or again, the hexagon formed of six triangles, whose apices converge to a point, thus: the symbol of the Universal creation, which Kenneth Mackenzie tells us “was worn as a ring by the Sovereign Princes of the Royal Secret”—which they never knew by the bye. If seven has nought to do with the mysteries of the universe and man, then indeed from Vedas down to the Bible all the archaic Scriptures—the Puranas, the Avesta and all the fragments that have reached us—have no esoteric meaning, and must be regarded as the Orientalists regard them—as a farago of childish tales. It is quite true that the three upadhis of the Taraka Raja-Yoga are, as Mr. Subba Row explains in his little article, “Septenary Division in Different Indian Systems,” “the best and simplest”—but only in purely contemplative Yoga. And he adds: . . . . . Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution.*

–––––––––– * Five Years of Theosophy, p. 186. [Also The Theosophist, Vol. V, p. 225.] ––––––––––

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Most decidedly he cannot. But this again holds good only with regard to his lower three principles—the body and its (in life) inseparable prana and linga sarira. The rest can be separated, as they constitute no vital, but rather a mental and spiritual necessity. As to the remark in the same article objecting to the fourth principle being “included in the third ko
a (sheath), as the said principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind,” I answer: Just so. But as the higher attributes of the fifth (Manas), go to make up the original triad, and it is just the terrestrial energies, feelings and volitions which remain in the Kama loka, what is the vehicle, the astral form to carry them about as bhoota until they fade out—which they take centuries to accomplish? Can the “false” personality, or the piśacha, whose ego is made up precisely of all those terrestrial passions and feelings, remain in Kamaloka, and occasionally appear, without a substantial vehicle, however ethereal? Or are we to give up the seven principles, and the belief that there is such a thing as an astral body, and a bhoot, or spook? Most decidedly not. For Mr. Subba Row himself once more explains how, from the Hindu standpoint, the lower fifth, or Manas, can reappear after death, remarking very justly, that “it is absurd to call it a disembodied spirit.” As he says: . . . . . It is merely a power or force retaining the impressions of the thoughts or ideas of the individual into whose composition it originally entered [italics H. P. B.’s]. It sometimes summons to its aid the Kâmarûpa power, and creates for itself some particular ethereal form (not necessarily human).* Now that which “sometimes summons” Kamarupa, and the “power” of that name make already two principles, two “powers”—call them as you will. Then we have Atma and its vehicle—Buddhi—which make four. With the three which disappeared on earth this will be equivalent to seven. How can we, then, speak of modern

–––––––––– * Five Years of Theosophy, p. 174. ––––––––––

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Spiritualism, of its materializations and other phenomena, without resorting to the Septenary?

To quote our friend and much respected brother for the last time, since he says that

. . . . . our [Aryan] philosophers have associated seven occult powers with the seven principles [in men and in the kosmos] or entities above-mentioned. These seven occult powers in the microcosm correspond with, or are the counterparts of, the occult powers in the macrocosm. . . .*

—quite an esoteric sentence—it does seem almost a pity, that words pronounced in an extempore lecture, though such an able one, should have been published without revision. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII April, 1897

H. P. BLAVATSKY’S INSTRUCTIONS 301

[H. P. BLAVATSKY’S INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNTESS CONSTANCE WACHTMEISTER, CONCERNING THE REMOVAL OF HER BODY AFTER DEATH]

[April 1, 1887]

[In the early spring of 1887, H.P.B., while at Ostende, became gravely ill. With her kidneys badly infected, she was unconscious for hours at a time. Countess C. Wachtmeister, who was living with H.P.B. at the time, summoned Mrs. Marie Gebhard from Elberfeld and Doctor Ashton Ellis of the London Lodge. A consultation between the latter and H.P.B.’s attending Belgian physician revealed very little hope of recovery. It was decided that H.P.B. would make her Will and that it would be signed in the presence of the two doctors, a lawyer, and the American consul. Before this plan could be carried out, and apparently during the night following upon this decision, H.P.B. was restored to relative health by her Master who had come that night and healed her. She had been given a choice between dying and living to finish The Secret Doctrine. She was shown the difficulties and sufferings she would have to go through in England where she was supposed to go. She chose to remain at her post and continue her work. The next day, the Will was made and signed as planned. For a while, this Will must have been in the hands of H.P.B.’s lawyer at Ostende. After H.P.B.’s passing, May 8,1891, Countess C. Wachtmeister saw the lawyer and was told that at one time he had given the Will back to H.P.B. She must have destroyed it at the time, as it was never found among her papers. Another Will drawn up later took its place (Vide C. Wachtmeister, Reminiscences, PP. 71-75).

It is quite probable that it was at this time that H.P.B. had someone write out on an ordinary piece of letter-paper her directives as to the removal of her body after death. This document is possibly in Countess C. Wachtmeister’s handwriting and is drawn up in French. It is signed by H.P.B. in pen and ink, with the addition of the three dots. The document was for a long time in the possession of Count Raoul-Axel Wachtmeister (1865-1947), the son of Count Carl Wachtmeister and Constance Georgina (de Bourbel) Wachtmeister. He gave it to his friend Axel Fredenholm, of Gothenburg, Sweden; the latter deposited it in the Archives of the Compiler of the present Series. The original French text of H.P.B.’s directives is as follows:]

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La soussigné Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, veuve de Monsieur Nicephor Blavatsky, particulier, résident actuellement à Ostende, mais domiciliée à Madras aux Indes, d’origine Russe naturalisée citoyenne des États Unies d’Amérique, née à Ekaterinoslav Sud de la Russie, le trente-et-un Juillet 1831 du mariage de feu le Colonel Pierre Hahn décédé à Stavropol au Caucase en 1874 et de feu Helene Andrevna Fadeew, décédée à Odessa le vingt-quatre Juin 1842, déclare par les présents qu’après son déces qu’elle veut que son corps soit transporté à Londre et autorise Madame la Comtesse (Wa) Constance Wachtmeister née de Bourbel à faire toutes les démarches nécessaires à cet effet. Ostende, le premier avril 1800 quatre vingt sept. H. P. Blavatsky...

[We have kept unaltered certain inaccuracies of French. “Soussigné,” in the first line, should have two “e”s; “résident” should have an “a” in the last syllable; “Unies” should have no “e” in it; “feu” should have an “e” in the feminine form; and “déces” should be “décès.”]

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FACSIMILE OF H.P.B.'S INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNTESS CONSTANCE WACHTMEISTER

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[ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE ORIGINAL FRENCH TEXT]

The undersigned, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, widow of Mr. Nikifor Blavatsky, * a civilian residing presently at Ostende, though domiciled at Madras, India, of Russian origin, naturalized in the United States of America, born at Ekaterinoslav, South Russia, the thirty-first of July, 1831 [old style], of the marriage of the late Colonel Peter Hahn,† deceased at Stavropol, Caucasus, in 1874, and of the late Helena Andreyevna Fadeyev,‡

–––––––––– * [Nikifor Vassilyevich Blavatsky, whom H.P.B. married in the summer of 1849. He was a descendant of an old Ukranian family originally named Blavatko. He was made Vice-Governor of the then newly constituted Province of Erivan’ in the Caucasus. The date of his passing has not been definitely ascertained, but the most likely period is after 1877. See Vol. I, p. xxxvi.—Compiler.] † [Peter Alexeyevich von Hahn was the son of Lieutenant-General Alexey Gustavovich Hahn von Rottenstern-Hahn and Elizabeth Maksimovna, née Countess Probsen. The General had been a famous figure in the Army of Fieldmarshal Suvorov, had crossed the Alps at a spot known as the Devil’s Bridge, in the St. Gotthard Pass, and became Commander of the town of Zürich in Switzerland, during the period of occupation. According to existing evidence, he must have died before 1830. His father, Gustav, immigrated into Russia at the beginning of the 17th century, being directly related to the Count von Hahn in Mecklenburg, Germany. Peter Alexeyevich, H.P.B.’s father, was born in 1798, and died at Stavropol’, North Caucasus, sometime in the summer of 1873. He was buried there, according to H.P.B.’s own statement (vide her letter to Alexander N. Aksakov, dated Dec. 3, 1874, in Solovyov’s Modern Priestess of Isis). He served for many years in Horse-Artillery; after retiring, with the rank of Colonel, he became Postmaster-General of the District of Grodno. There existed a very close tie between H.P.B. and her father, and he kept her supplied with means during most of her world-wide travels.—Compiler.] ‡ [Helena Andreyevna de Fadeyev (1814-1842), H.P.B.’s mother, was the daughter of Privy Councillor Andrey Mihaylovich de Fadeyev (1789-1867), Governor of the Province of Saratov, and later Director of the Department of State Lands in the Caucasus, and of Helena Pavlovna, née Princess Dolgorukova. The latter was a very remarkable person. She was a noted botanist, a woman of unusual scholarly attainments and of great culture, which was very rare for a woman of that period of Russian history. She was in correspondence with a number of scientists, among them Sir Roderick Murchison ––––––––––

COUNTESS CONSTANCE GEORGINA LOUISE WACHTMEISTER 1838-1910 Courtesy of Axel Fredenholm, Gothenburg, Sweden.

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deceased at Odessa, the twenty-fourth of June, 1842, declares by these presents that she wishes her body to be taken, after her death, to London, and authorizes Madame the Countess (Wa) Constance Wachtmeister, born de Bourbel, to make all the necessary arrangements to this effect. Ostende, the first of April, 1800 and eighty seven.

H. P. BLAVATSKY...

––––––––––

–––––––––– (1792-1871), British geologist and one of the Founders of the Royal Geographical Society, who went on an extensive geological expedition to Russia. She spoke five foreign languages and was an excellent painter. Her valuable herbarium was presented after her death to the University of St. Petersburg. Helena Andreyevna was the eldest daughter of the above-mentioned couple. Very early in life, she became a noted novelist, her first work being published when she was only 23. Her marriage was not a happy one, mainly due to incompatibility and the inability on her part to fit into the narrow groove of her husband’s military life. In her novels, she pictured the wretched position of women, their lack of opportunities and education, and raised the problem of their ultimate emancipation. She was the first woman in Russia to do it by literary means. Her best works are Utballa, Jelalu’d-Din, Theophany Abbiagio, and Lubonka. She wrote under the pseudonym of Zinaida R—. She died at the age of 28, and was hailed by the greatest Russian literary critic Byelinsky as a “Russian George Sand.”—Compiler.] –––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII May, 1887

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UNITED

[The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, No. 92, May, 1887, pp. 514-520]

[Regarding this Review of A. P. Sinnett’s novel which bears the above title (London: George Redway, 1886. 2 vols.), H.P.B. has the following to say, in a letter dated January 10, 1887; which she wrote to Sinnett from Ostende (originally published in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 226-229):

“You are wrong in attributing to my neglect the review of your United. It is there two-thirds done ever since you went away but I wanted to do it well, or leave it alone. Two pages were dictated to me—the rest left to my own brilliant pen. Hence it clashes like a star with a rush-light. I am on it again however and this time will finish it . . .”]

Months have passed since the publication of this remarkable work—remarkable as a psychic production besides its undeniable literary worth—and we have been watching all the time to see the effects produced by it on the Philistine press. The latter forgetting but too often “that it is not the eye for faults, but beauties, that constitutes the true critic,” has made us acquainted for years with the spirit with which it generally treats theosophical works. There are not a few reviewers in the Metropolis of England—pre-eminent among these the literary critics of the Saturday Review, who love to proceed in the spirit so sternly denounced by Macculloch. “Fastidiousness, the discernment of defects and the propensity to seek them, in natural beauty, are not the proofs of taste, but the evidence of its absence,” he says. And adds: “it is worse than that, since it is a depravity, when pleasure is found in the discovery of such defects, real or imaginary.” When no defects can be ferreted out in unpopular works, the press boycotts them in contemptuous silence.

It came to pass as it was expected. Unable to tear the mystic romance to shreds, to find fault with its style, or even to criticize the subject, as its author had wisely screened it behind the privileges of a fancy novel—the Philistines simply ignored it. There appeared two or three short notices in the leading papers in which, with

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one or two exceptions, chaff—not always witty—was made to stand for a literary notice, and then the press subsided into silence. The novel was seriously mystical, the descriptive portions of the various phases of psychic phenomena were photographed from nature, and it was written by an earnest and a well-known Theosophist. This was, of course, amply sufficient to place the work on the Index Expurgatorius. The Graphic alone had a few words of appreciation in its columns.

As the present notice lays no claim to an analysis of the literary merits of United, but means to treat only of the psychic element in it—it may be worth our while to remind the reader of what was said of this novel in one, at least, of the best London papers.

Mr. Sinnett’s new contribution to the literature of transcendental psychology, United, is more than a worthy successor to Karma. Adepts and disciples will, no doubt, apply to this work as to its predecessor, in order to find freshly suggestive light thrown on the doctrine it illustrates and seeks to popularize. But the ordinary reader is by no means forgotten—quite the contrary: and it is from his point of view that it will be the most prudent to discuss the work. Independently of its subject then, United is a thoroughly interesting romance. Well constructed, and perfectly clear, calculated to exercise a fascination over the most sceptical or indifferent with regard to esoteric theosophy. Moreover, though it is, and should be, no purpose of a story to convince, it is likely to attract, and, in any case, to inspire personal respect for the very obvious earnestness of the author. The main story, little broken by episode, is that of a man who transfers his entire vitality to a girl, in order to save her life, and, by his self-sacrifice, not only raises her to a higher scale of being, but has earned the right to her life in return in a loftier sphere. All this sounds very mystical, but the result is a pathos only to be obtained through skill in giving to the mystical the semblance and impression of realism—a very high form of art indeed, and very seldom carried out so well. No doubt faith, in the completest sense, has something to do with the artistic and popular success of Mr. Sinnett’s achievement in so exceedingly difficult a field.—(Graphic, July 24, 1886, London.)

The above is not over-extravagant in giving a clear idea of the work, but it is fair and honest in its appreciation. No longer notice of United has appeared, even in our Theosophical publications. We will not stop to find

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any valid reasons for it, for there were none; except, perhaps, as regards The Theosophist—an instinctive fear of saying too much or too little. It is time that this remarkable novel and its esoteric truths should be more amply analyzed and thus pointed out to the attention of theosophical readers, at any rate. Hitherto there has been too much tendency in the organs of our Society to sacrifice spirit to form, to lay too much stress on isolated cases of the normal manifestations of psychic powers, instead of popularising them as a LAW IN HUMAN NATURE. This power is “latent in MAN,” and not in solitary units of the human family only, though this mystery of dual life in every man, woman and child may remain unknown to them ninety-nine times out of a hundred. This ignorance is due to our Western modes of life. Whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate—we, of the civilized nations, are born, live and die under an artificial light; a false light which, distorting our real selves like a mirror cracked in all directions, distorts our faces, and makes us see ourselves not as we are, but as our religious superstitions and social prejudices show us to ourselves. Otherwise—the Ediths and Marstons would be less rare in every class of society than they are now. For who of us knows, or has any means of knowing Self, while he lives in the lethal atmospheres of whether Society or Proletariat? Who, taught from babyhood that he is born in sin, helpless as a reed, whose only true support is the “Lord”—can think of testing his own powers—when even their presence in him is a thought that never could enter his mind? Between the eternal struggle for more gold, more honours, more power in the higher classes, and the “struggle for existence,” for bread and life, in the lower ones, there is no time or room for the manifestation of the “inner man” in us. Thus, from birth to death that EGO slumbers, paralyzed by the external man, and asserts itself only occasionally in dreams, in casual visions, and strange “coincidences”—unbidden and unheeded. The Psychic or HIGHER SELF

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as it is called in United, has to be, first of all, entirely ridden of the soporific influence of Personal Self, before it can proclaim obviously its existence and actual presence in man. But once this condition is fulfilled, then truly “he who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king”—as Milton says: for he is an adept already; the shell alone between the inner man and the world of objective as subjective manifestation, is to be overcome; and when it offers no better resistance than a merely passive one then the higher self is as free as on the day on which that shell will be left behind him for ever. But there are rare individuals who seem born with this capacity for certain mysterious objects of karma, and whose inner SELVES are so strong as to actually reduce to nought the resistance of their personal or provisional bodies. Such a “rare efflorescence” of her age is Edith —first the child, and then the girl heroine of Mr. Sinnett’s novel. The author has enhanced the value of his great services to Theosophy and laid the world of thought under an additional obligation by the publication of the above novel; not as the reviewer in the Graphic thinks, because he gave “to the mystical the semblance and impression of realism,” but because he clothed REALITY—an actual psychic phenomenon which under pseudo-impartial modern investigation and too scientific a treatment could hitherto grow no higher in public recognition than a “telepathic impact”—in such attractive yet natural garb, and presented it in such an easy reading form. To that numerous class of the reading public which has no taste for abstract metaphysical speculation, the interweaving of some true occult doctrines into the framework of such an interesting narrative is invaluable. In fact, the mystic bias now tempering so much current light literature, is in a large measure accountable for the rush of spirituality which constitutes not the least noticeable feature of the last few years. Difficult as it is to convey in an intelligible manner to the general reader the more advanced doctrines of the secret teaching, we must make the attempt. In United, a mass of lucid metaphysical

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speculation is blended with the subject matter of a story of prosaic, every-day society life.

The story opens with a description of the early life of the heroine—Edith Kinseyle—with her widowed father and a good, simple soul of a governess, in a lonely country house. The father is an ever-occupied scholar, an ardent philologist leading his own inner life of study, so absorbed in it, that “he realized for the first time that she [the wife] had been seriously ill” only when “in a gentle, unobtrusive way,” Mrs. Kinseyle “had dropped into the grave.” The first lines of the work acquaint the reader with the whole character of the heroine’s father, and thus lead him to see how much the early surroundings of the child were propitious for the development in her of her abnormal powers. She was the only child of a quiet country gentleman, of no large means, whose lack of fortune as much as the retired habits of a book-worm, had narrowed the horizon of her social life from birth, and thus thrown her forcibly upon the resources of a mental, inner world of her own. Her governess, Miss Barkley, “a tall, thin spinster, with very prominent teeth, a mild disposition and a long experience of life”—the latter quality having no effect upon her terror of ghosts—rather developed than checked in the child an early and ungovernable love for the mysterious and the “supernatural,” by thus awakening in the girl a natural spirit of innocent combativeness and malice. From the early age of six, Edith manifested an abnormal interest in the occult. She rummaged out all the old books in her father’s library to get information upon ghosts in general and “a family ghost” especially; and was frequently found by her governess perched on the entrance gate of the avenue wistfully wanting to catch a glimpse of the family ‘‘apparition”—an old knight on horseback whose astral picture occasionally curdled the blood in the veins of the rustic “elect” who happened to see it.

The story of the simple child-life of that young dreamy soul evoluting from without within, so to speak, and

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awakening with every day more to an inner instead of an outer world under the sole guidance of her own personal instincts—is very beautiful. Till the age of six when her mother died, the child had been left entirely to follow her own quiet tastes. It was only when placed under the necessity of either sending his daughter to school or taking a governess for her, that the widower was brought to a closer acquaintance with his child. He was quite startled and perplexed to discover that the six years old baby had a will in the choice of her future destinies. For when Ferron Kinseyle attempted to argue her into making her choice of rather school than governess,

“Oh, Papa!” she cried, more in sorrow than in anger, “you don’t mean that you will send me from you against my will!” and with that she melted into tears.

Both will and tears had their desired effect. Miss Edith remained at home, and time rolled on for her, calm but never monotonous, between her kind father and as kind a governess on the external plane; and the fathomless world within herself she was never tired of exploring till she was seventeen. Her beauty expanded, but she preferred her quiet home to everything else. Her love of the quiet seclusion of Compton Wood was born of no shrinking timidity of nature, still less of any morose dislike of her fellow creatures. The sunny brightness of her own temperament gilded the old house with all the gaiety she required...... Thus she passed her days between her quiet home and visits to an old manor belonging to some relatives whither she was drawn by a “Countess’ Study,” so called, in it. It was not a “canny habitation after dusk” for nervous people; for that “Countess” of old had left a memory after her for having practised the “black art,” and after her death her wraith had been seen at the same windows in the “moon-light.” But it was the more attractive for Edith, who had never been “nervous,” to her governess’s sorrow. In that large room of the deserted house she used to sit for long hours before dusk, while Miss Barkley ventilated her fidgety fears with Mrs. Squires, the lodge-keeper’s wife. During

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one of such rests in the lodge while Edith is in the “Countess’ Study,” the governess meets with two young gentlemen—George Ferrars and Marston. After mutual introduction the former gives the curious information that he is at present engaged in following a clue for his sister, Mrs. Malcolm. The latter, who is fond of penetrating into the depths of things occult and who is a clairvoyant, has received a mysterious communication: she must become acquainted with a young girl connected with an old manor called Kinseyle-Court. His companion, Marston—the chief hero in the occult plot—turns out, later on, to be a strong mesmerizer, one deeply versed in the mysteries of psychic lore. Meanwhile, feeling more brave with two young men to protect her from possible ghosts, Miss Barkley “marvelling at the strange coincidence,” proceeds in search of Edit in company of her new acquaintances. But Edith does not answer the call from the hall. In great terror the governess rushes through the old house in search for her and finds her pupil at last. Half kneeling, half lying prostrate on the floor, her creamy white dress shining as though luminous in the moonbeams, her hands clasped together and her face turned upwards towards. . . . the Countess’ Study. . . . . “Oh, why did you disturb us?” she said in a dreamy tone . . . . “ I feel as if I had been in Heaven, but now she has gone...... ” “The beautiful angel has been here just where I am standing talking to me, for I don’t know how long, filling my mind with such rapture I can’t describe it to you . . . I have been lifted up out of myself—I can’t bear to come down again...... ”

Edith cannot tear herself away from the spot where she had this first experience of living in her Higher Self, and outside of her body. A little water brought by Marston, however, who says in a confident tone that— “It is pure water, with only a little magic in it . . . . which will not be at war with the vision”

—recalls Edith back to this life, and the two—the natural born seeress and the strong adept and mesmerizer, become linked in the same destiny from that hour henceforward.

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It is not mutual love however—as no profane novel writer would fail to make it. On Edith’s part it is not even a very acute sympathy or interest. She feels his influence later on, and chiefly during her hours of supersensuous existence, when separating from her body she lives in her “Higher-Self.” Otherwise, this first and several subsequent meetings have no immediate effects upon the girl—though Marston’s fate is sealed from that night. He becomes passionately devoted to her, but with a mystic love that has nothing of the terrestrial element in it.

Edith and Marian Malcolm (Ferrars’ sister) soon become great friends and feel a passionate affection for each other. Both are mutually attracted at first, because both labour under the impression that they are visited by one and the same “Spirit Queen”—although the latter is only the glorious Spirit SELF of the pure girl, called Edith, who thus strangely mistakes that Higher-Self for a being independent of her own individuality. Marston, the adept in occult mesmerism, finally disabuses her and reveals the truth to the young Seeress. But in doing so he seals his own destiny.

There is a deadly secret in his life, a mystery that is known only to this old and trusted friend of his young days, Ferrars, and his sister, and one that makes him lead the life of a Cain, for no crime of his own. That crime––expiated by his father on the gallows—digs an abyss between himself and the girl he loves. With his mesmeric power over her it would be easy for him, as he says to Mrs. Malcolm, to have chained her life to his, but he will not do it. “Would it not have been base to do so?” he asks. As for Edith, as she brings back to earth none of the knowledge of persons and things she exhibits while plunged by Marston in her trances, she is ignorant of that great love. None of the terrestrial impurities seem to touch her, and she is wholly absorbed only in her dream-life. She even gets engaged to a worthy Colonel who adores her, but whom she consents to wed, simply because, as she writes, “I have been

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paired off by my destinies and my friends with Colonel Denby.”

In one of her trance states she reveals to Marston and Mrs. Malcolm that her lung is very weak and that she will not live, that in her waking hours, feeling strong and healthy, she is ignorant of the danger; though when the doctors find it out this does not seem to affect her in the least. She remains throughout the same dreamy and, at the same time, merry girl as from the first. It is this pre-eminently occult feature—the constant though unconscious longing for deliverance from the terrestrial bonds in every true psychic, all the attractions, happiness and joy of a young life, notwithstanding—that the author has admirably developed and described in his heroine. Her dual nature, so difficult to maintain in contrasted harmony in the same character, is drawn with a masterly hand by the author. He has created a marvellously natural combination in his heroine. Edith longs for the unalloyed bliss of a “Higher-self state” whenever she approaches the arcanum of her own nature, and yet once she is back on earth, she assumes no mystic melancholy airs, shows no disgust for life, but is thoroughly herself each time—the young and joyous daughter of the earth. “Nobody would live in the body if they knew what it was to live in the world of spirit” she argues, when lying entranced. . . “but one must never hasten the change,” she adds. And yet all the aspirations of her life in her external body seem to make her unconsciously strive after that glorious “change,” as “everything else does seem so poor and worthless compared to the glory and joy” of that disembodied yet fully conscious state Thus the two parallel lines of life of the illusive, external Edith and her HIGHER SELF as “Spirit Queen” and her own guardian—reminding us of the dramatic interview of Zanoni with his shining and glorious Augoeïdes—are never blended together, and yet they present an integral whole, an artistic blending of the same spiritual individuality, the immortal reflecting itself in the mortal.

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The reader of United finds more than one mystic scene in it, whose details are occult truths presented under a semblance of romantic fiction. It is the business of the intuitional and esoteric student to discern the correct doctrine under a slightly modified form for purposes of an easier reading. The sacrifice of Sidney Marston is of an intensely dramatic character and true to life in the great and mysterious possibilities of the occult transfer of forces and even LIFE in mesmeric phenomena. In his intense and immortal love for her, his “Soul Queen,” who can never belong to him on this earth, Marston wants her to live and even to wed another man as he knows she could never be happy with himself. Hence he resolves to infuse into her veins and rapidly disappearing lungs the breath of life from his own organism, and then to die and vanish from this life to be ever near to her in his invisible soul-body. This he accomplishes notwithstanding her opposition, subduing her will under his stronger energy.

“Be merciful and gracious and do not reject my offering,” he pleaded. “For Edith, dearest, I tell you the die is cast—the step istaken. I would not draw back, if I would. . . . . This day has been spent in . . . work that cannot be undone. . . . . If I had been dying from common-place illness...... I should not be more free than I am to speak to you as I am speaking. I shall never see you again my beloved, after this night. . . . . I give you my life, my own. It is my supreme act of will. . . . . It is transfusing into your being as I speak, and my heart that has been beating for you only for so long, is beating nearly its last now in glad and proud exhaustion for your sake, as it rests for the first and last time against your own. You shall be happy in this life, my glorious queen,—in this life as in the next—and you will not be pained by the recollections of this evening after the first excitement of it has passed. . . . . My beloved, we could not both be happy on this earth, and I choose to stand aside and let you pass. Anyhow I am of service to you in dying, and I can be of no service to you living.”

Whatever influences were working upon her, the intense excitement through which she was passing, or something else as well, were now so powerful that any coherent thought, not to speak of argumentative protest, were wholly impossible for her. She lay in his arms panting, and flushed and giddy with the tumultuous energy pulsing through her veins. . . . . Under the dominion of a different kind of

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bewilderment his own words become more confused and his own sight uncertain—”Ah! I am staying too long,” he stammered.

“I must go, good-bye, good-bye.”

He rose to his feet, staggering as if intoxicated, clutched the chairs, and made his way to the door ...... Edith came flying through the hall from the drawing-room as he was opening the carriage door.

“Do not let him go!” she cried. “Marian—he is very ill. Stay! I command you to stop. I will not live without you.”

“Too late! Too late!” he answered, but rather in exultation than in sorrow. “Drive on,” he called in a loud voice to the coachman......

“He has died for me,” Edith said almost fiercely. “We shall never see him living again.”

They never did; for as Edith explained it:

“These things which are so strange to you are tremendous realities to him and to me. He had always been able to make me strong—to refresh me by magnetism when I was enfeebled, and that used to exhaust him in exactly the same way it strengthened me. It was a transfer of vitality. He could give it out, I could absorb it. But these small efforts in the past were as nothing to what he found out at last to be possible. He has learned how to pour out his life in a great flood upon me, so that I have been made strong and well, and he is dead at this moment in the carriage that is driving his body to London! ...... ”

Is this a fiction or a real fact in nature? Perchance, when that which Dr. Richardson calls “etheric nerve-force,” the life principle, is better known and accepted, the seemingly impossible phenomenon will become comprehensible. If animal magnetism is a fluid, a force, an energy, call it what you will [and] can heal diseases by infusing new life-energy into the patient’s veins, why is the transfer of the whole supply of it from one body into another an impossibility? Truths are stranger than fictions, and very often so. Still they are truths and have to remain facts in nature.

But the sacrifice proved useless. Instead of remaining in her physical organism, the life-energy Marston imparted to her, took another direction, and under the intense spirituality of Edith, loosened still more the bonds of union, between her astral Higher Self and the body.

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Edith determined to leave her body for good. “Dear,” she said consoling Marian,

“Don’t you see it must be so? Knowing what I know now, and with the consciousness so vivid of what the other life open to me is like, how can I possibly go on with this one?” There is a magnificent scene of clairvoyance between the two friends Marian and Edith in the old Manor, near the “Countess’ Study,” a day or two before the last disembodiment of the latter. Then, the last scene, after Edith had prepared her father—unconscious of his approaching loss—to separation with his only child. In the night Mrs. Malcolm

Felt the glorified spirit of Edith beside her, even as she lay in a state of slumber. . . . . It seemed to Mrs. Malcolm when the morning came, that she had passed through years of time, and that the bodily Edith was a beautiful memory rather than a fact of yesterday...... And then Edith bid her good-bye. The last words the vanishing spirit utters reveal the secret of her determining upon the untimely “change”. For she says:

“It is hardly good-bye from me at all, for I shall scarcely be conscious of missing any part of you from the Higher Self that will be always with me. I shall be none the less with you because I shall be also with the one other person who has earned so thoroughly the right to blend his existence with mine.”

Marston and Edith were UNITED in Devachan “from whence no traveller returns.” The glorious “Higher Self” with which we are united during life, gathers around itself the Higher selves of all those whom it loved on earth with an immortal spiritual love. Thus the spirit of Edith was right in saying to Marian she would not miss “any part of her from HIGHER SELF, who would always be present.

H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Collected Writings VOLUME VII June, 1887

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[Le Lotus, Paris, Vol. I, No. 4, juin 1887, pp. 193-203]

«. . . . [Madame Blavatsky] n’est pas le porte-voix de voyants que le public ignore, ni une simple et vulgaire aventurière; mais nous croyons qu’elle a conquis sa place dans l’histoire comme l’un des plus accomplis et des plus intéressants imposteurs dont le nom mérite de passer à la postérité ».

—Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. III, Part ix, décembre 1885, p. 207.

M. Hodgson, l’auteur de ce remarquable verdict* aurait dû, pour se montrer aussi prophétique que sagace, ajouter ces mots: «Oui, son nom passera dans l’histoire. Il figurera, au vingtième siècle, entre les noms de comte de Saint-Germain et de Cagliostro, dans les encyclopédies futures; article: ‘Les Imposteurs célèbres’».

Eh bien! je ne m’y oppose pas. Je m’y trouverai en fort bonne compagnie. En effet, une vieille femme qui a eu assez d’esprit pour berner depuis son enfance tous ceux qui l’approchaient, qui pendant ces quatorze dernières années, a su tromper—mettons hypnotiser—des centaines d’hommes intelligents et des douzaines de personnages de la meilleure société, comprenant des esprits supérieurs fort connus comme hommes de science, une telle femme mérite, certes, de passer dans l’histoire, et ses victimes avec elle, hâtons nous d’ajouter.

Le verdict a fait le tour du monde. Il a été accueilli avec avidité par tous les journaux bavards et cancaniers, et a reçu l’hospitalité la plus bienveillante sur les pages

–––––––––– * Voir Le Monde Occulte (préface: p. vi; etc., et postface, 349, etc.). Pour tous les passages obscurs de cet article, nous renvoyons le lecteur ignorant de ces évènements contemporains au Monde Occulte publié par l’éditeur de cette Revue. (F. K. G.) [These initials stand for Monsieur F. K. Gaboriau, Editor of Le Lotus, and his reference is clearly to his own French translation of The Occult World by A. P. Sinnett, which was published under the title of Le Monde Occulte: Hypnotisme Transcendant en Orient, Paris and Brussels, 1887, and contained 368 pages.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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des revues dites scientifiques et philosophiques,* il a fourni de belles phrases à des brochures plus ou moins littéraires et a été acclamé et commenté par l’armée grouillante des reporters à tant de sous la ligne. Mais pourquoi a-t-on choisi cette phrase du décret Hodgson? C’est tout simple. Ce décret venait d’une Société scientifique, de cette Société des Recherches Psychiques qui prétend séparer le bon grain de la paille, reconnaître le vrai du faux et établir ainsi le règne de la paix et de la fraternité entre les matérialistes et les spirites anglais. Son fondateur et chef, d’ailleurs, M. Myers n’a-t-il pas appartenu pendant trois ans à la Société Théosophique? Tout le monde ne sait-il pas, à Londres, qu’il a était un des premiers «bernés», puisque bernés l’on veut, de la London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, et qu’il fut un temps où il croyait parfaitement à tous ces phénomènes? Ces derniers sont appelés «niaiseriess» maintenant, dans la Revue scientifique, dont le directeur est un autre ex-théosophe, qui s’est retiré à temps, comme à l’Opéra comique, pour sauver le buste de la Science.† Ergo: la sentence vient de haut; Mme Blavatsky est condamnée par contumace.

–––––––––– * Voir les articles pédantesquement ridicules de la Revue scientifique (16 avril, 1887, p. 503), de la Revue philosophique (avril 1887, p. 402), de la Revue de l’Hypnotisme (février 1887, p. 251), etc., (F. K. G.). † N’ayant jamais eu l’honneur de connaître M. Charles Richet, ce n’est pas moi toujours qui l’ai berné en le faisant entrer dans la Société, mais bien deux ex-théosophistes ardents, une parisienne et un russe. Ce dernier, ayant juré à tout le Paris théosophique qu’un des Adeptes (Mahatmas) lui était apparu en corps astral, dans sa chambre, avait causé avec lui près d’une heure, assis sur une chaise en face de lui, et qu’il lui était réapparu encore une fois, dix minutes aprés l’avoir quitté, afin de lui donner une preuve que ce qu’il avait vu n’était pas un rêve, il en résulte que je ne suis pas la seule à avoir inventé les Adeptes orientaux, s’ils ne sont que des fictions. Ce monsieur visité croit sortir de son mauvais pas, à l’heure qu’il est, en donnant le change. Il assure à tout le monde que c’est Mme Blavatsky qui l’avait hypnotisé, le forçant de la sorte à voir cette scène. S’il en est ainsi, l’illusion ayant duré près d’une heure, il serait peu logique de me refuser la possession de pouvoirs extraordinaires. Le phénomène n’en serait que plus remarquable. La Revue scientifique trouvant que Le Monde Occulte «pourrait être l’objet d’une curieuse ––––––––––

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Tout ceci, je l’écris, ne cédant qu’à contre-coeur aux instances de mes amis. On me supplie de répondre aux volumes de railleries de perruquier, de blagues ineptes accumulées par les journaux, aux accusations plus sérieuses des revues de science et de philosophie. La vie est trop courte, et le temps trop précieux pour qu’on le perde à contredire des propos en l’air, des suppositions basées sur des hypothèses—toutes scientifiques qu’elles soient. Je cède, mais en me réservant le droit, dans ce cas, de dire ce que je pense. Tant pis pour ceux qui entendront la vérité.

Or, je conteste à la science, quand même elle s’intitulerait «psychologique», le droit de toucher des questions dans lesquelles, matérialiste jusqu’au bout de ses ongles crochus qu’elle est, elle ne peut que voir du bleu. Pour être regardé comme un expert dans un art quelconque, il faut être soi-même artiste en cette spécialité. Or, si l’on excepte M. Myers qui fut un croyant et qui accepta d’abord les phénomènes sur foi, pour les répudier ensuite—sur foi encore,—se fiant à la sagacité de son agent, c’est-à-dire au témoignage absolument isolé d’un ignorant en mystères psychologiques, aucun des juges et jurés de la Société Psychique n’est compétent à se prononcer sur les manifestations anormales. Pas un n’est médium, ni occultiste, parmi ces bons savants de Cambridge. Aussi ont-ils déclaré Eglinton—un des médiums les plus remarquables de l’Europe—un imposteur, depuis A jusqu’à Z.

La science est aux abois. Forcée par les faits, qui ne respectent aucune perruque, de se rendre à leur évidence, elle a été mise en demeure de donner son opinion sur les –––––––––– étude sur l’état psychologique de son auteur et de ses héros » (No. 16, avril, p. 503), aurait dû commencer par faire cette étude sur les deux théosophistes qui ont recruté son Directeur dans les rangs de l’armée théosophique, avant que de lui permettre de s’y engager. Potins de femmes et personnalités s’accordant mal avec la Science exacte. [See Compiler’s Note following the English translation of the above long footnote.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

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phénomènes psychiques. Elle s’y soumit diassez mauvaise grâce. Il y en a, parmi ses représentants qui se sont adonnés avec ardeur aux recherches hypnotiques. En sont-ils plus avisés pour cela? Ceux qui se sont convaincus de la réalité des phénomènes, ainsi que de l’impuissance de la science à les expliquer par des données purement physiologiques, se taisent, n’osant parler, car ils savent bien ce qui les attend. La liste est longue des savants connus qui, après s’être aventurés sur l’arène du spiritisme pour y briser une lance dans la défense des phénomènes, se sont vus classés par leurs confrères sous l’étiquette de non compos mentis. M. Wallace, le grand naturaliste de Londres, a fermé la bouche et ne dit plus rien; M. Crookes préfère également le silence; M. Gibier est à la veille d’être proclamé un aimable halluciné, sinon un charlatan comme le traitait un de ses confrères que je ne veux pas nommer; et ainsi de suite. . . . .

Un peu de logique, s’il vous plait, Messieurs mes juges et calomniateurs. La Société Psychique de Londres pouvait-elle se prononcer en faveur de tous les phénomènes décrits dans le Monde Occulte et ailleurs, sans risquer de perdre son titre de «scientifique»? Comment son adhésion à tout ce qui me fut attribué par les phénoménalistes aurait-elle été reçue par les savants qui nient d’emblée l’existence des forces intelligentes en dehors de l’homme? C’était une question de vie ou de mort, le to be or not to be d’Hamlet. Une fois que les calomnies d’une méchante femme, poussée par la vengeance et aidée de toute une noire armée de missionnaires, furent publiées dans l’organe évangelique de ces derniers, la Société Psychique—ou plutôt son fondateur théosophiste—n’eut plus qu’à choisir entre les deux cornes du dilemme. De deux choses l’une: (a) ou bien il devait déclarer publiquement que les accusations de la dame Coulomb étaient des inventions, et dans ce cas, lui et sa Société savante auraient eu à partager les quolibets lancés contre les théosophes, à être noyés dans un fleuve de ridicule, il aurait perdu sa caste enfin, comme on dit aux Indes, et pour toujours; (b) ou naviguant avec le courant, il fallait

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bien, pour se tenir sur l’eau, proclamer que tous les phénomènes, les Mahatmas et leurs agents étaient une immense imposture.

Impossible de transiger; c’était à prendre ou à laisser. La Société Psychique s’était trop avancée et trop compromise.

Sait-on seulement dans quelles circonstances eut lieu l‘enquête de M. Hodgson aux Indes? Que sait-on de cet agent devenu si célèbre pour sa «sagacité merveilleuse», sagacité à faire pâlir les exploits des mouchards les plus renommés? Eh bien, je vais vous renseigner; et je défie mes ennemis de me donner un démenti.

Ce jeune homme, sans expérience aucune, n’ayant pas la moindre idée des phénomènes psychiques ou autres est envoyé aux Indes; à lui seul, il est procureur, juge, juré et avocat, tout à la fois. Arrivé là, il devait faire une enquête, prendre note de tous les phénomènes produits depuis sept ans, comparer les témoignages des théosophistes avec ceux de leurs dénonciateurs, etc., etc. Comment s’y est-il pris? Il n’a interviewé que nos ennemis, des missionnaires hydrophobes, des ex-membres de la Société, expulses de nos rangs, des railleurs et des matérialistes endurcis. Les chrétiens protestants dont se compose la société anglo-indienne, à cheval sur la routine du cant, guidés dans un fourreau de correction et de respectability, le reçurent à bras ouverts. Depuis la fondation de la Société Théosophique aux Indes, ce monde anglo-indien, le monde officiel et jaloux, s’était montré notre adversaire implacable. M. Hodgson aimait à faire figure dans les salons; il recherchait les bals et les grand dîners, et il avait à choisir entre ce monde pétillant de champagne frelaté sinon d’autre chose, et notre monde occulte. C’est ainsi qu’il vint un jour chez nous emprunter un costume de prince indou d’un de nos théosophistes pour se pavaner à un bal costumé donné par le gouverneur de Madras. Une fois là, il déclara publiquement, à la grande joie du monde respectable et correct, que la Société Théosophique n’était qu’une imposture; c’était, selon lui, une association d’imbéciles trompés et de trompeurs intelligents.

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Un détail curieux sur les lettres que je suis accusée par les missionnaires d’avoir écrites, et que l’expert de Londres, après de longues hésitations *, trouva être de mon écriture, c’est-à-dire tracées par la même main qui avait, disait-on, écrit toutes les lettres des Mahatmas: M. Hodgson les a portées sur lui pendant des semaines entières. Il vint nous voir tous les jours. Il logea chez nous pendant une semaine. Ces lettres, il ne me les a jamais fait voir, il ne m’a jamais demandé d’explication à leur sujet. Jusqu’à ce jour je n’ai jamais aperçu la couleur d’une de ces lettres “incriminantes”. Et ceci s’appelle une enquête scientifique et faite d’une manière impartiale!

Quand on veut tuer son chien, on le dit enragé, et M. Pasteur lui-même n’y pourrait rien faire. Et l’on veut que je me défende! Devant qui, bon Dieu? Devant ceux qui croient en M. Hodgson et qui prennent ses déplacements au sérieux, ou devant les pauvres reporters pour qui je suis une mine inépuisable de gros sous? Les premiers m’avaient condamnée d’avance comme charlatan, avec ou sans cette fameuse enquête de si triste célébrité pour la Société Psychique. Ils n’ont jamais changé d’idée. Cela n’a fait que de leur fournir un semblant de droit de plus: celui de proclamer sur toutes les gouttières ce qu’ils disaient en petit comité depuis que mon nom est devant le public. Les autres, allons donc! Il faut bien que le pauvre monde vive. Si en m’appelant «grosse grenouille» ou «farceuse» un dîner est assuré à un pauvre journaliste affamé, je ne m’y oppose nulle ment.† La charité et le pardon entrent dans la liste des vertus théosophiques. D’ailleurs, est-ce qu’il y en a un

–––––––––– * Je ne m’étonne pas de ces hésitations, attendu qu’un autre expert, non moins célèbre, et qui occupe à Berlin une position en vue au Tribunal, a prononcé une décision diamétralement opposée à celle de son confrère de Londres. Cet expert a, dans un document officiel, écrit et juré, déclaré que les lettres signées des initiales du Mahatma K. H ne pourraient en aucun cas être de la main de Mme Blavatsky. † Voir la Lanterne, journal des insulteurs: 30 novembre 1886. (F. K. G.) ––––––––––

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seul parmi mes détracteurs parisiens si âpres à la curée, qui me connaisse? Quant à mes amis—les vrais amis—ils ont confiance en moi comme par le passé. Pour chaque désertion—et il y en a bien peu—j’ai acquis dix nouveaux amis dévoués, autant de membres pour notre Société. Le seul résultat des foudres lancées contre moi par la Société Psychique a été de forcer l’attention publique à se partager entre les régents bulgares, M. de Bismarck, le Pape—et moi. C’est fort flatteur. D’autant plus que les tours de force psychiques accomplis par ces Messieurs sont bien plus remarquables que tous les phénomènes qui me sont attribués. Un autre résultat cependant est la formation, en Angleterre même, d’une nouvelle Loge théosophique intitulée: Blavatstky Lodge, et sa transformation prochaine en Société Théosophique de la Grande-Bretagne englobant en son centre la London Lodge et les autres branches. Maintenant, une dernière question à vider. Toute action et à plus forte raison toute série d’actions, s’étendant sur un grand nombre d’années, commise par un individu quelconque, doit avoir nécessairement un motif plausible. Tout arbre se juge par les fruits qu’il porte. Quel a donc bien pu être le motif qui m’a poussée à fonder la Société théosophique, à révéler ce que j’avais tenu secret pendant de longues années, à me jeter, enfin, corps et âme dans la gueule du monstre qui a nom Opinion publique, qui m’attendait à mon entrée dans l’arène? La nécessité de trouver un motif cadrant avec ses conclusions était si bien reconnue par la Société psychique que ce fut la tâche la plus ardente et la plus ardue de cette dernière. On ne put en découvrir aucun; mais les faits suivants furent reconnus par M. Hodgson: 1° Je n’avais jamais accepté un sou pour les phénomènes. Toute offre de ce genre avait été constamment rejetée. Il suffisait que quelqu’un m’offrit une rémunération * pour qu’il perdit tout espoir de jamais obtenir de moi l’ombre d’un phénomène.

–––––––––– * Bien des rajahs que l’on pourrait nommer m’offrirent des milliers de roupies en vain. En Amérique, un millionnaire me fit offrir ––––––––––

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2° M. Hodgson constata, tout au contraire, que depuis sa fondation, je donnais tout mon argent à notre Société avec mes services incessants et gratuits. 3° Des bijoux de prix furent reçus par bon nombre de personnes, même quelquefois par celles qui n’étaient pas de nos membres, tandis que maintes fois des théosophistes pauvres, ou dans un besoin urgent, recevaient des sommes assez fortes (dans un cas 500 roupies: 1250 fr.), dans des lettres venant des Mahatmas: lettres que je suis accusée d’avoir écrites! 4° Plus un théosophiste était pauvre, plus sa position sociale était humble, et plus il avait de chances d’être témoin des plus grands phénomènes. Je dirai en passant que des vrais phénomènes sérieux * personne n’a jamais soufflé mot publiquement: ils furent

–––––––––– 10,000 dollars si je parvenais à lui faire constater un phénomène des plus simples—que je n’avais jamais refusé de produire à aucun de nos membres—le tintement mélodieux d’une ou plusieurs notes, en l’air. Il fut repoussé, et je n’en voulus plus entendre parler. Ceci est de l’histoire, s’il vous plaît. * La Revue scientifique dit: « . . . On se demande pourquoi des êtres humains, doués d’une puissance aussi grande, s’amusent aux niaiseries que l’on nous rapporte». Le bibliographe le saurait s’il s’était donné la peine de lire le livre. Un peu plus loin: « . . . Les objets sur lesquels Mme Blavatsky exerce sa puissance et celle des mystérieux adeptes . . . sont vraiment trop mesquins». La Revue philosophique a de semblables réflexions. Il nous serait facile de faire à notre tour d’aimables plaisanteries sur l’importance que ces messieurs qui se sont adjugé le monopole de la science, attribuent à leurs pauvres expériences, ridicules quand elles ne sont pas dangereuses. On pourrait montrer Nana hypnotisée, offrant les symptômes d’une grossesse suggérée, au grand amusement de nos badauds, ou allant embrasser, à très courte échéance, tel grave professeur qui sert de risée, sans s’en apercevoir, à toute une bande de gamines, pour démontrer la névrose de la psychose de l’hypnose; on pourrait représenter M. X. trempant dignement son doigt dans de l’urine mieux dosée que son cerveau, et le sucant pour constater si la saveur est acide, acerbe, styptique, ambrosiaque ou asparago-nauséeuse; ou bien encore évoquer l’image de ce savant allemand, qui, récemment, couché dans une baignoire, s’occupait-noblement à souffler sur son pubis émergeant de l’eau pour faire des études comparatives sur les sensations tactiles de chaud et de froid. Mais nous voulons être indulgents. (F. K. G.) ––––––––––

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toujours tenus secrets et sacrés. Ce n’est que la catégorie de manifestations psychiques et autres sans aucune importance et produites pour l’amusement des amis—théosophistes comme non-théosophistes—qui furent trainées au grand jour par l’indiscrétion de certains membres enthousiastes. Je m’y suis toujours opposée; mais le courant a été plus fort que moi: il m’a renversée, et c’est sur le cadavre de ma réputation et de mon honneur que certains faits ont été portés à la connaissance du public.

Quel pouvait donc être ce mobile insaisissable, mystérieux, auquel je suis accusée d’avoir obéi pendant ces quatorze dernières années, d’avoir sacrifié tout mon avoir, tout l’argent que je gagnais ailleurs avec mes travaux littéraires, toute mon énergie, ma santé—perdue pour toujours,—presque ma vie enfin? Etait-ce l’ambition, le désir de me voir célèbre? Impossible, car je m’y serais mieux prise dans ce cas. Je serais restée l’amie et l’alliée des spirites et des spiritualistes, mes plus implacables ennemis aujourd’hui. J’aurais montré un respect au moins apparent pour les missionnaires et le clergé, au lieu de les dénoncer; j’aurais brûlé de l’encens au nez des dieux de l’opinion publique et fréquenté le monde. J’y serais restée un mouton de Panurge, au lieu de montrer mon indifférence––j’allais dire mon mépris—à ce monde frivole, sans cœur, sans tête, sans entrailles pour la misère d autrui et surtout pour ceux qui lui tournent le dos. Je ne fis jamais rien de tout cela. Il devait être bien fort cependant ce motif, qui, m’ayant poussée d’abord à inventer des Adeptes et une Fraternité puissante dans les Himalayas, me contraignit ensuite à forger des lettres au nom de plusieurs d’entre eux. La tâche n’était pas facile. Les écritures de ces lettres sont aussi différentes qu’en sont les styles. Elles étaient rédigées en anglais, en français, comme en russe quelquefois: trois langues que je connais. Mais elles étaient écrites aussi, souvent, en sanscrit, en marathi, en bhâshâ, en tous les dialectes de l’Hindoustan, dont je ne sais pas le premier mot. A côté des quelques lettres dont des fragments ont été publiés de temps en temps, il existe

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des volumes entiers d’autres lettres dont fort peu de personnes ont eu connaissance: des lettres privées, pleines de philosophie, que quelques théosophistes conservent comme des reliques. C’est à la rédaction de ces lettres que je suis accusée d’avoir consacré mon temps et ma vie. Pourquoi? Eh bien, le sagace M. Hodgson l’a trouvé! Selon lui, c’est par pur patriotisme et comme espionne pour le compte du gouvernement russe que j’ai inventé tout cela. L’accusation laisse beaucoup à désirer, car elle n’explique rien. De quoi les Adeptes indous et bouddhistes vivant dans les Himalayas pourraient-ils jamais faire beneficier mon pays? Comment un coup de clochette dans la botte d’un Anglo-Indien ou une cigarette passant d’une poche dans un piano pourraient-ils devenir utiles à une armée russe en train de faire une trouée dans l’Afghan? Autant de mystères qui ne font qu’embrouiller le chaos des explications scientifiques de la Société psychique. Ce ne fut qu’un immense éclat de rire, à la lecture de cette sotte accusation, depuis le cap Comorin jusqu’aux sommets de Simla. Pas un Anglo-Indien qui ne sache que c’est une absurdité. Les Anglais, aux Indes, peuvent dire mea culpa, pour bien des alarmes créées par leur peur chronique des Russes, mais jamais ils n’ont été assez bêtes pour croire à un motif semblable. Ils savent trop bien le contraire. Pendant les trois premières années que je passai aux Indes, le vice-roi lui-même n’eut pas une aussi belle escorte d’agents de police deguisés que celle qui me gardait nuit et jour. Je fus suivie et surveillée partout où j’allai. Enfin, de guerre lasse, on me laissa tranquille. Convaincus qu’il n’y avait rien à surprendre, ils en furent pour leurs frais. C’est Sir Frank Souter, ministre de la police à Bombay, et Sir Alfred Lyall, à Simla, qui me l’ont confessé personnellement. Cherchez donc ailleurs, messieurs les journalistes. Cherchez toujours, et tâchez surtout de trouver un motif logique, raisonnable. En attendant, si vous tenez absolument à m’accuser, tâchez de ne pas oublier que vous êtes Français, et essayez d’être au moins un peu plus polis, s’il vous est impossible de faire preuve d’impartialité

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et de bon sens. Une fois que vous acceptez le portrait tracé de la main d’un ignare en matières occultes, et que vous copiez en toutes lettres que Mme Blavatsky «n’est pas une simple et vulgaire aventurière», mais qu’elle mérite de vivre dans le souvenir de la postérité « comme l’un des plus accomplis imposteurs, etc.», n’allez donc pas gâter l’effet de cette belle phrase. Car il est tout bonnement impossible de croire qu’une personne de cette forcelà ait jamais pu se rendre coupable de certaines maladresses, que vous lui attribuez. C’est une position qu’on ne saurait conquérir étant sujet à toutes ces folies, ces bourdes, ces oublis incroyables dont on m’accuse. L’hypothèse tombe par son propre poids.

Donc, de deux choses l’une: ou bien je suis (a) une femme innocente et calomniée le plus lâchement du monde, pour des raisons qui sont loin d’être mystérieuses; ou bien je suis (b) une hypnotisée chronique. Ma nourrice m’aurait suggéré qu’il y avait des Adeptes et des phénomènes.... Mais qui donc l’aura suggéré à tous ceux qui croient avoir vu de leurs yeux Mahatmas et phénomènes? Nouveau mystère! D’un côté, «un témoin de la valeur de M. Hodgson » (Revue de l’hypnotisme; article écrit par M. Tétard, hypnotisé à son tour jusqu’à accorder au témoin une valeur que personne ne lui reconnait à Londres); de l’autre, quelques centaines de témoins dont la valeur n’est, certes, pas moins grande que celle du témoin de M. Tétard. Seraient-ils tous hypnotisés par moi, par hasard?

Dans ce cas, Messieurs les journalistes et surtout Messieurs les Directeurs de Revues hypnotiques scientifiques et philosophiques, venez donc, pour l’amour de la science, me demander quelques leçons de suggestion et d’hypnotisme, au lieu de perdre votre temps à me calomnier. Car si tous ceux qui sont restés fidèles à la Société Théosophique et à moi personnellement (une bagatelle de milliers de théosophistes représentant les cent et quelque sociétés aux Indes, avec plusieurs centaines d’Européens et d’Américains) passent leur vie sous l’effet permanent de mon hypnotisme, et que cette hypnotisation leur fait

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prendre des vessies pour des Adeptes * et des lettres écrites par moi, ou même copiées dans des journaux spirites, pour des lettres de haute philosophie,—alors, convenez-en, je dois être plus forte que toutes vos grandes sommités médicales. Les docteurs Charcot, Ch. Richet e tutti quanti ne m’iraient pas à la cheville dans ce cas. Quant à la pauvre Société Psychique, à moins qu’elle ne franchisse, et vite, l’étroit horizon de son «telepathic impact» dont elle nous rebat les oreilles, elle finira par hypnotiser si bien son public qu’il n’y aura bientôt plus moyen de le réveiller.

Enfin, et pour terminer cette trop longue causerie, voici un extrait qui montrera que les opinions sont partagées à mon sujet, et se resument en trois, diamétralement opposées. Je le tire d’une lettre d’un Anglais, M.B...... capitaine aux Indes, théosophe et homme d’esprit.

. . . . Je suis désolé que vous preniez trop au sérieux le fiasco des misérables Coulombs et la besogne nauséabonde brassée par M. Hodgson à la Société des Recherches Psychiques. Ce n’est qu’un sujet d’amusement pour vos amis, car il est facile de pénétrer les dessous de l’histoire. C’est justement ce à quoi il fallait s’attendre. MM. Gurney et Myers lancèrent la Société Psychique au milieu d’une belle sonnerie de clairons qui ne fut saluée que par la éclats de rire d’un monde moqueur. Comme conclusion, ils prouvèrent quele public connaît les choses et ne se laisse pas imposer. L’affaire Coulomb s’éclaircit en un rien de temps. Hodgson est l’homme de Madras: Veni, vidi, vici. Il avait sa réputation à faire à vos dépens; c’était une question de vie ou de mort pour lui et la Société Psychique. Ainsi va le monde; nous n’avons pas à nous en plaindre, mais plutôt à nous en réjouir. La Société Théosophique est purgée: maintenant vous voyez quels sont vos vrais amis. Il n’y a plus que les sots et les cerveaux vides qui prêtent attention aux paroles d’un Hodgson. Connaissez-vous la publication catholique The Month? Cette revue a fait, dans ses numéros de février et de mars, un compterendu du Monde Occulte et de Esoteric Buddhism; elle en tire la conclusion que vous êtes une horrible sorcière. Juste ciel! Ils doivent évidemment rire d’Hodgson et de son grand rapport. Ainsi, comme vous voyez, les opinions sont partagées en trois camps: le parti Société Psychique, de l’espionne russe et du charlatan; le parti Sainte-Église?

–––––––––– * On a été jusqu’à dire que les corps astraux vus par quantité de témoins étaient en baudruche gonflé. (F. K. G.) ––––––––––

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de la magie diabolique chère à des Mousseaux et de Mirville; et enfin, nous-mêmes, qui vous avons gardé notre confiance après avoir lu le bon et le mauvais rapport. Quant à moi, je n’ai d’autre but en vue que la poursuite de la vérité.* Voici tout ce que j’ai à dire sur ce concert de calomnies et de cancans ineptes qui commence à devenir monotone. Je suis trop sérieusement occupée pour perdre mon temps à répondre à tous les loups qui hurlent à la lune. . . .

H.P. BLAVATSKY. Londres (Maycot), juin 1887. –––––––––– * Nous avons eu cette lettre entre les mains pour traduire ce passage, et nous avons pu voir que le cabinet noir ne se gêne pas pour décacheter les lettres envoyées à Mme Blavatsky; car sur l’ouverture se trouvait le cachet postal: found open and officially sealed. (F. K. G.) ––––––––––

––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII June, 1887

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS?

[Le Lotus, Paris, Vol. I, No. 4, June, 1887, pp. 193-203]

[Translation of the foregoing original French text by Dr. C. J. Ryan] “. . . . . For our own part, we regard her [Madame Blavatsky] neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history.” —Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. III, Part ix, December, 1885, p. 207.

Mr. Hodgson, the author of this remarkable verdict, ought to have added the following, in order to show that he was as prophetic as he was sagacious: “Yes, her name will pass into history. It will figure, in the twentieth century, between the names of Count de Saint-Germain

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 331

and Cagliostro in future encyclopedias: article ‘Celebrated Impostors’.” *

Well, I have no objection. I shall find myself in excellent company. Really, an old woman who has had enough wit from her childhood to make fools of all who came near her, who for the last fourteen years has been able to deceive—let us say, to hypnotize—hundreds of intelligent men and dozens of personages of the highest society, including some brilliant minds very well known as men of science, such a woman surely deserves to pass into history, and, we hasten to add, her victims with her.

The verdict has gone around the world. It has been welcomed with avidity by all the garrulous and tattling journals, and has received the most friendly hospitality in the pages of the so-called scientific and philosophic magazines;† it has provided high-sounding talk for some more or less literary pamphlets, and has been hailed and commented on by the swarming mob of penny-a-liners. But why did they choose that sentence from the Hodgson decree? It is perfectly simple. That decree comes from a scientific Society, from that Society for Psychical Research which lays claim to separate the good grain from the chaff, to recognise the true from the false, and so to establish the reign of peace and brotherhood among the English materialists and spiritualists. Has not its founder

–––––––––– * See The Occult World (preface, p. vi, etc., and Appendix, p. 349 etc.). For all obscure passages in this article, we refer the reader who is ignorant of the contemporary events to The Occult World, published by the Editor of this Magazine.—F.K.G. [These initials stand for Monsieur F. K. Gaboriau, Editor of Le Lotus, and his reference is clearly to his own French translation of The Occult World, by A. P. Sinnett, which was published under the title of Le Monde Occulte: Hypnotisme Transcendant en Orient (Paris and Brussels, 1887), and contained 368 pages.—Compiler.] † See the pedantically absurd articles in the Revue Scientifique (April 16, 1887, p. 503); in the Revue Philosophique (April, 1887 p. 402), in the Revue de l’Hypnotisme (February, 1887, p. 251), ––––––––––

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and chief, Mr. Myers,* been a member of the Theosophical Society for three years? Does not everyone in London know that he was one of the first in the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society to be “fooled,” since they will have it so, and that there was a time when he believed fully in all those phenomena? The latter are now called “tomfooleries” (niaiseries), in the Revue Scientifique, whose editor is another ex-Theosophist who has withdrawn in time, as in a comic opera, to save the face of Science.† Ergo, the verdict is loudly proclaimed; Madame Blavatsky is condemned by default.

–––––––––– * [Vide Vol. V. pp. 263-64, in the present Series, for biographical data regarding Frederick W. H. Myers.—Compiler.] † Never having had the honor of knowing Charles Richet, it is not I who have fooled him in making him enter the Society, but rather two ardent ex-Theosophists, a Parisian lady and a Russian. The latter, having sworn to all Theosophical Paris that one of the Adepts (Mahâtmans) had appeared to him in the astral body in his own room, had talked to him for nearly an hour, while seated on a chair before him, and had reappeared again ten minutes after leaving in order to prove that what he had seen was no dream, it follows that I am not the only one who has invented oriental Adepts—if they are mere fictions. The gentleman thus visited thinks he can get out of the scrape now by putting the public on the wrong scent. He asserts to everyone that it is Madame Blavatsky who had hypnotized him and had forced him by that method to perceive that scene. If this were so, the illusion having lasted nearly an hour, it would be rather illogical to deny me the possession of extraordinary powers. The phenomenon would only be the more remarkable. The Revue Scientifique, finding that The Occult World “might provide the subject of a curious study of the psychological condition of its author and of his heroes” (No. 16, April, p. 503), would have to begin by making this study of the two Theosophists who recruited its editor into the ranks of the Theosophical army, before permitting him to undertake it Feminine gossip and personalities do not agree well with exact science. [The Russian gentleman referred to by H.P.B. was her one-time friend, Vsevolod Sergueyevich Solovyov, who later turned against and bitterly slandered her. He was a romantic writer and poet. Born in 1849, as the eldest son of the famous historian, Serguey Mihaylovich Solovyov (1820-79), V. S. Solovyov graduated in law from the Moscow University in 1870; he served later in the 2nd Department of His Majesty’s Chancellery, and was Chairman of the ––––––––––

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 333

I am writing all this reluctantly, yielding to the solicitations of my friends. They beg me to reply to the volumes of barbers’ jokes, of silly, empty gossip accumulated by the papers, and to the more serious charges of the scientific and philosophic magazines. Life is too short, and time too precious, to waste it in contradicting idle tittle-tattle, suppositions founded on hypotheses—quite scientific though they be. I yield, but reserve the right, in this matter, to say exactly what I think. So much the worse for those who will hear the truth. Now, I deny to science—even though self-styled “psychological”—the right to touch upon problems of which, materialistic as it is to the tips of its crooked fingers, it can make neither head nor tail. To be considered an expert in any art whatever one must be an artist in that specialty oneself. Now, if we except Mr. Myers, who was a believer, and who at first accepted the phenomena on faith, to repudiate them later—again on faith—trusting to the sagacity of his

–––––––––– Permanent Committee on popular readings. Starting in 1876, he published a large number of rather well-known novels, some of them appearing serially in the journal Niva. Among them are: Princess Ostrozhskaya, Young Emperor, Tzar-Maiden, etc. In 1889, he became, with Gnedich, one of the Founders of the illustrated journal Syever (North). He died in 1903. V. S. Solovyov published a series of articles under the title of “A Modern Priestess of Isis,” in the Russkiy Vyestnik (Russian Messenger), February-May, and September-December, 1892. They were on the whole hostile to H.P.B. They also appeared in book-form in 1893 (St. Petersburg: N. F. Mertz. 2nd ed., 1904), with an Appendix containing Solovyov’s answer to Madame Vera Petrovna de Zhelihovsky’s pamphlet, H. P. Blavatsky and a Modern Priest of Truth (St. Petersburg, April 1st, 1893), in which she challenged many of his errors and slanders. V. S. Solovyov’s book was translated into English in a somewhat abridged form by Walter Leaf, Litt. D., “on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research,” and published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1895. The translation gives an abstract of Madame de Zhelihovsky’s pamphlet and Solovyov’s Reply to it. It is on pages 79-81 of this translation (pages 70-72 of the Russian book-edition) that occurs Solovyov’s description of the visit paid to him at –––––––––––

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agent, i.e., to the absolutely unsupported testimony of one ignorant of psychological mysteries, none of the judges and jurors of the Psychical Society is competent to express an opinion upon abnormal manifestations. Among these good savants at Cambridge, not one is a medium, nor an occultist. Witness the fact that they have also declared Eglinton—one of the most remarkable mediums in Europe an impostor, from A to Z. Science is at its wits’ end. Forced by facts, which respect no big-wig, to surrender to their testimony, it has been laid under the necessity of giving its opinion about psychic phenomena. It has submitted with bad enough grace. Among its representatives there are those who have ardently devoted themselves to hypnotic researches. Are they any the more enlightened for that? Those who

–––––––––– Elberfeld, on the night between August 26 and 27, 1884, by Master M., and of his conversation with H.P.B. on this subject the next morning. It is also recounted in a letter, signed by Solovyov, and dated Paris, October 1st, 1884, which is published on pp. 393-95 of the S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. III, Part ix. (Vide also Vol. VI, p. 446, of present Series, for additional data under SOLOVYOV.) The brother of Vsevolod Solovyov, Vladimir Sergueyevich Solovyov (1853-1900), was one of the greatest philosophers of Russia, most of whose profound writings have not yet been translated into English, except for brief essays. He wrote a favorable review of H.P.B.’s work, The Key to Theosophy, for the Russkoye Obozreniye (Russian Review), Vol. IV, August, 1890. The Parisian lady mentioned by H.P.B. in the same footnote was most likely Madame Émilie de Morsier. She was the niece of the well-known Swiss philosopher and theologian Ernest Naville, and acted as the secretary of the Paris Theosophical Society Richly endowed with talent, she was a first-class musician and singer, her hereditary prejudices preventing, however, a life devoted to art. Compelled to play the role of housewife to a ruined nobleman, she tried to enliven her colorless existence with charitable pursuits and activities among prisons, hospitals and orphanages. She was greatly drawn to serious study, was rather widely read and had the gift of oratory. Madame de Morsier had been in correspondence with H.P.B. while the latter was in India, and was naturally attracted to her when she came to Paris. She became the heart and soul of the Theosophical work inaugurated at the time, but became influenced by slanderous report and turned against H.P.B.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 335

are convinced of the reality of the phenomena as well as of the impotence of science to explain them on purely physiological principles, keep silence, not daring to speak, for they well know what awaits them. The list is long of well-known scientists who, having ventured into the arena of spiritualism to break a lance in defence of the phenomena, have been classed by their colleagues under the label of non compos mentis. Mr. Wallace, the great London naturalist, has shut his mouth and says no more; Mr. Crookes also prefers to keep silence. Monsieur Paul Gibier is on the point of being declared an amiable lunatic, if not a charlatan, as one of his colleagues, who shall be nameless, called him; and so forth. A little logic, if you please, Messrs. Judges and Slanderers. How could the London Psychical Society pronounce in favour of all the phenomena described in The Occult World and elsewhere without risking its title of “scientific”? How would its acceptance of all that was attributed to me by the phenomenalists have been received by the scientists who deny wholesale the existence of intelligent forces outside of man? It was a question of life or death, of the to be or not to be of Hamlet. Once that the calumnies of a spiteful woman driven by vengeance, and helped by the entire black army of missionaries, were published in the evangelical organ of the latter, the Psychical Society—or rather its Theosophical founder—was forced to choose between the horns of a dilemma. One or the other: (a) either to declare publicly that the charges of the Coulomb lady were inventions—and in that case he and his learned Society would have to share the sorry jeers flung at the Theosophists and be drowned in a flood of ridicule, forever losing caste, as they say in India; or (b) sailing with the current, it would have to proclaim, in order to keep from sinking, that all the phenomena, the Mahâtmans and their agents, were a huge imposture.

Compromise was impossible; it was a case of taking or leaving it. The Psychical Society had gone too far, and was committed too deeply.

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Is it actually known under what conditions Mr. Hodgson’s investigation in India took place? What is known of that agent, so famous for his “marvelous sagacity,” a sagacity before which the exploits of the most renowned police-spies pale? Well, I am going to tell you, and I defy my enemies to refute me.

That young man, with no experience whatever, without the slightest conception of psychic and other phenomena, was sent to India; he alone was prosecutor, judge, jury, and counsel, all at the same time. When he arrived, he ought to have made an investigation, studied all the phenomena of the last seven years, compared the testimony of the Theosophists with that of their accusers, and so forth. What course did he take? He only interviewed our enemies, the hydrophobic missionaries, the ex-members of the Society who had been expelled from our ranks, the scoffers, and the hardened materialists. The Protestant Christians who constitute Anglo-Indian Society, sticklers for the routine of cant, rigid in the sheath of correctness and respectability, received him with open arms. Ever since the establishment of The Theosophical Society in India, this Anglo-Indian world, the official and jealous world, showed itself as our implacable antagonist. Mr. Hodgson loved to make a figure in the drawing-rooms; he frequented the balls and dinner-parties; he had to choose between the glittering world of spurious champagne and other things, and our occult world. In this way he came to us one day to borrow the costume of a Hindû prince from one of our Theosophists, to flaunt at a fancy-dress ball given by the Governor of Madras. Once there, he publicly declared, to the great delight of the respectable and correct assembly, that The Theosophical Society was nothing but a fraud; it was, according to him, an association of duped imbeciles and intelligent swindlers.

Here is a curious detail about the letters that I am accused, by the missionaries, of having written and that

DR. ANNIE BESANT, COL. HENRY S. OLCOTT, & WILLIAM QUAN JUDGE In Garden of 19, Avenue Road, London Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 384.

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 337

the London experts, after long hesitation,* found to be in my handwriting, i.e., traced by the same hand which, they said, had written all the letters from the Mahâtmans: Mr. Hodgson carried them about with him for whole weeks. He came to see us every day. He stayed a week at our house. He never allowed me to see the letters; he never asked me to explain them. Until this day, I have never seen the color of one of these “incriminating” letters. And this is called a scientific inquiry, made in an impartial manner!

“Give a dog a bad name and hang him”; and Monsieur Pasteur could not do a thing about it. And so they wish me to defend myself! Good God, before whom? Before those who believe Mr. Hodgson and who take his movements seriously, or before the needy reporters for whom I am an inexhaustible mine of wealth? The former have condemned me in advance as a charlatan, with or without the famous investigation of such melancholy celebrity for the Psychical Society. They have never changed their minds. That investigation merely furnished them with one more apparent right: namely that of proclaiming in all the gutters what they had said among a select few ever since my name came before the public. As for the latter: well—the poor must make a living! If, by calling me a “fat frog” or “humbug,” a poor famished journalist is assured of a dinner, I have no

––––––––––– * I am not surprised at this hesitation in view of the fact that another expert, not less famous, who occupied in Berlin a prominent position in the highest tribunal, had pronounced a decision diametrically opposite to that of his colleague in London. This expert, in an official document, written and sworn to, declared that the letters signed by the initials of the Mahâtman K. H. could in no case be in Madame Blavatsky’s hand. [The London experts referred to by H.P.B. were Frederick George Netherclift and Mr. Sims of the British Museum. The Berlin expert was Herr Ernst Schütze, Caligraphist to the Court of H.M. the Emperor of Germany. Schutze’s statement to this effect can be found in A. P. Sinnett’s book, Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, pp. 323-24.—Compiler.] –––––––––––

338 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS objection.* Charity and forgiveness are in the list of Theosophical virtues. Moreover, is there even one of my detractors, so eager for their quarry, who knows me?

As for my friends—the true friends—they have confidence in me as in the past. For every desertion—and there have been very few—I have acquired ten new and devoted friends, and as many members for our Society. The only result of the thunderbolts flung at me by the Psychical Society has been to force public attention to divide itself between the Bulgarian Regents, Bismarck, the Pope, and—myself. This is highly flattering. All the more so as the psychic tours de force accomplished by those gentlemen are far more remarkable than all the phenomena ascribed to me. Another result, however, is the formation in England of a new Theosophical Lodge, called the Blavatsky Lodge, and its approaching transformation into the British Theosophical Society, including within it the London Lodge and the other branches.

Now then, to dispose of one final question: every act—and even more, every series of acts extending over a long period of years, committed by any individual whatever—must have necessarily a plausible motive. Every tree is judged by the fruit it bears. What, then, can be the motive that urged me to establish The Theosophical Society, to reveal what I had kept secret for long years, to throw myself, body and soul, into the jaws of the monster called Public Opinion which was waiting for me to enter the arena? The necessity of finding a motive tallying with its conclusions was so well recognised by the Psychical Society that it became its most burning question and its most arduous task. None could be found; but the following facts were discovered by Mr. Hodgson:

1. I had never accepted one cent for the phenomena. Every offer of that nature had always been refused. It

–––––––––– * See La Lanterne, a journal of the insulters; November 30, 1886. —F.K.G. ––––––––––

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was enough for anyone to offer me remuneration,* to lose any hope of getting the shadow of a phenomenon from me.

2. On the contrary, Mr. Hodgson established, that since its foundation, I have given all my money to the Society, as well as my unceasing and gratuitous services.

3. Valuable jewels were received by a good many persons, sometimes even by non-members, while on many occasions needy Theosophists or those in urgent distress received considerable sums (in one case 500 rupees or 1250 francs) in letters coming from Mahatmas, letters that I am accused of having written.

4. The poorer the Theosophist, the humbler his social standing, the more likely he was to be a witness to the greatest phenomena.

I will say, in passing, that no one has ever breathed a word, publicly, about the really significant phenomena;† they were always held sacred and secret. Only those in the category of psychic manifestations, and others of no

–––––––––– * Many Râjâs who could be named offered me thousands of rupees in vain. In America, a millionaire made me an offer of $10,000 if I should succeed in demonstrating to him one of the most simple phenomena—one I had never refused to produce for any of our members—the melodious tinkle of one or several tones in the air. He was spurned, and I declined to hear anything more on the subject. And this is history, if you please. † The Revue Scientifique says: “ . . . . The question arises why human beings, endowed with so great a power, should amuse themselves with such trifles as are reported to us.” The bibliographer would know why if he took the trouble to read the book. A little further: “The objects on which Mme. Blavatsky exercises her power and that of the mysterious adepts . . . . are really too paltry.” The Revue Philosophique makes some similar remarks. It would be easy for us in our turn to make amiable jokes about the importance these gentlemen, who claim for themselves the monopoly of science, attribute to their limited experiences, ridiculous as they are when not dangerous. The hypnotized Nana could be exhibited, displaying signs of suggested pregnancy to the great amusement of the vulgar, or about to embrace, at very short notice, a solemn professor who, without perceiving it, serves as a laughing-stock for a troop of hussies, in order to demonstrate the neurosis of the psychosis of hypnotism . . . . But we prefer to be lenient. (F.K.G.) –––––––––––

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importance, produced for the amusement of my friends—Theosophists as well as non-Theosophists—were dragged into the light of day by the indiscretion of certain enthusiastic members. I was always opposed to this, but the current was stronger than I: it has overthrown me, and it is over the corpse of my reputation and of my honor that certain facts have been brought forward to the knowledge of the public.

What, then, can that intangible, mysterious motive-power be that I am accused of obeying for the last fourteen years, to which I have sacrificed all I had, all the money I have earned elsewhere by my literary work, all my strength, my health—lost for ever—and finally almost my very life? Was it ambition, the desire to see myself famous? Impossible, for in that case I would have made a better job of it. I should have remained the friend and ally of the Spiritists and the Spiritualists, my most implacable enemies today. I should have shown respect, at least apparently so, to the missionaries and the clergy, instead of denouncing them; I should have burnt incense under the noses of the gods of Public Opinion, and have moved in good society. I ought to have played the part of a tame cat therein, instead of showing my indifference—I was about to say my contempt—for that frivolous, heartless, brainless world, pitiless for the sorrows of others, above all for those who turn their backs to it. Never have I done any one of these things.

It must, however, have been a very strong motive that, having first driven me to invent Adepts and a mighty Fraternity in the Himâlayas, compelled me afterwards to forge letters in the names of several of them. It was not an easy task. The handwritings of these letters are as different as their styles They were written in English, in French, and sometimes in Russian; three languages that I know. But they were also written in Marâthi, in Bhâshâ, and in all the dialects of Hindûsthân, of which I do not know the first word.

Besides certain letters, portions of which have been published from time to time, there are whole volumes of

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 341

letters that are known to very few persons indeed; private letters, filled with philosophy, preserved as treasured relics by certain Theosophists.* These are the letters to whose production I am accused of devoting my time and my life. Why? Well, the sagacious Mr. Hodgson discovered the reason. According to him, it was for pure patriotism and as a spy of the Russian Government that I invented the whole thing. That accusation leaves much to be desired, because it explains nothing. In what way could the Hindû and Buddhist Adepts, living in the Himâlayas, ever benefit my country? How could a bell-sound in the shoe of an Anglo-Indian or a cigarette passing from a pocket into a piano be of any use to a Russian army on its way to break into Afghanistan? So many mysteries merely complicate the chaos of scientific explanations of the Psychical Society. From Cape Comorin to the heights of Simla there was one loud guffaw when this accusation was read. There is not an Anglo-Indian who does not know it to be an absurdity. The English in India may say mea culpa, for the many alarms created by their chronic fear of the Russians, but they have never been so stupid as to believe a motive of this nature. They know the contrary far too well. During the first three years I passed in India, the Viceroy himself did not have such a fine escort of disguised police detectives as those who shadowed me night and day. Everywhere I went I was followed and watched. Finally, the war ended and I was left in peace. Convinced that there was nothing to discover, it only remained for them to pay the bills. It was Sir Frank Souter, head of the Bombay police, and Sir Alfred Lyall, at Simla, who admitted this to me personally. Look elsewhere, gentleman of the press. Continue to search, and above all see if you cannot find a reasonable

––––––––––– * [It is most likely that reference is here made to the letters received by A. O. Hume and A. P. Sinnett, published later as The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Copies of some of these letters had been given at the time to a few Theosophists, although most of the originals remained in Sinnett’s possession.—Compiler.] –––––––––––

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and logical motive. Meanwhile, if you absolutely insist on making accusations against me, try not to forget that you are Frenchmen, and endeavor to be at least a little more courteous, if it be impossible for you to show impartiality or good sense. Once you accept the portrait traced by the hand of a person ignorant of occult matters, and copy in so many words that Mme. Blavatsky “is not a simple and vulgar adventuress,” but that she deserves to live in the memory of posterity “as one of the most accomplished impostors,” etc., do not proceed to destroy the effect of that fine sentence. Because it is downright impossible to believe that a person of such power could ever have been guilty of certain blunders attributed to her by you. That is a position no one who indulged in such insanities, such fibs, such incredible lapses of memory, as those I am accused of, could have the wit to reach. The hypothesis falls by its own weight.

Well now: one cannot have it both ways: either I am (a) an innocent woman, slandered in the most cowardly way possible, for reasons that are far from being mysterious; or I am really (b) a permanently hypnotized person. My nurse must have suggested to me that there were Adepts and phenomena! But who then suggested it to all those who believe they have seen Mahâtmans and phenomena with their own eyes? A new mystery! On the one hand, “a witness of the rank of Mr. Hodgson” (Revue de l’Hypnotisme; article written by Monsieur Tétard, hypnotized to the extent of allowing the witness a rank that no one gives him in London); on the other hand, several hundred witnesses whose rank is certainly not less than that of Monsieur Tétard’s witness. Did I hypnotize them all perchance?

In that case, gentlemen of the press, and above all Editors of Hypnotic, Scientific, and Philosophic Magazines, for the love of science come to me, and beg for lessons in suggestion and hypnotism, instead of wasting your time in slandering me. For, if all who remain faithful to The Theosophical Society and to me personally

JUDGES OR SLANDERERS? 343

(a mere trifle of thousands of Theosophists representing the hundred-odd branches in India, and several hundred Europeans and Americans) are living under the permanent effect of my hypnotism, and if this hypnotization has made them mistake bladders for Adepts,* and letters written by me, or even copied in the spiritualistic journals, for letters on high philosophy, it must be granted that I am more powerful than all your great medical authorities. In that case, Drs. Charcot, Charles Richet, e tutti quanti, would not reach to my ankle. As for the poor Psychical Society, if it does not at least extend, and quickly too, the narrow outlook of its “telepathic impact,” which afflicts our ears, it will end by hypnotizing the public so effectively that there will soon be no means of awakening it.

Finally, and to close this too lengthy discussion, here is a citation showing that opinions differ on this subject and that they can be separated into three, diametrically opposed. It is taken from a letter from an English Captain in India, Mr. B—, a Theosophist and a man of intelligence.† . . . . . I am very sorry that you should take seriously the fiasco of the wretched Coulombs and the nauseating business hatched up by Mr. Hodgson for the Society for Psychical Research. It is only a subject for amusement to your friends, because it is easy to see through the story. It is exactly what must be expected. Messrs. Gurney and Myers launched the Psychical Society in the midst of a loud blowing of trumpets that was hailed by nothing but shouts of laughter from a mocking world. As a result, they have demonstrated that the public understands the matter and will not let itself be imposed upon. The Coulomb affair was cleared up in no time. Hodgson is the man of Madras: Veni, vidi, vici. He had to make his reputation at your expense; it was a question of life or death for him

–––––––––– * Some have gone so far as to say that the astral bodies seen by numerous witnesses were made of inflated gold-beater’s skin. —F.K.G. † [Probably Captain A. Banon, 39th N. I. As the whereabouts of the original English text of this letter are unknown, the best we can do is to translate into English the Editor’s own French rendering of the original.—Compiler.] –––––––––––

344 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

and the Psychical Society. It is the way of the world, and we must not complain of it, but rather rejoice. The Theosophical Society is purged: now you know who are your real friends. None but fools and the brainless pay attention to a Hodgson. Do you know the Catholic publication, The Month? In its February and March numbers that magazine gives a review of The Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, and draws the conclusion that you are a horrible sorceress. Merciful Heavens! They evidently must laugh at Hodgson and his grand Report. So, you see, opinions are divided into three camps: the Psychical Society’s party of the Russian Spy and Charlatan theory; that of the Holy Church—diabolical magic beloved by Des Mousseaux and De Mirville; and, finally, ourselves, who have retained our confidence in you after having read the good and the bad reports. As for myself, I have no aim but the pursuit of truth.*

That is all I have to say about this concert of calumny and silly gossip which is becoming monotonous. I am too seriously occupied to waste my time answering all the wolves that bay at the moon. . . . . H.P. BLAVATSKY. London (Maycot), June 1887.

–––––––––– * We have had this letter in our own hands for translation, and we observed that the Cabinet Noir is not ashamed to unseal letters sent to Mme. Blavatsky, for on the envelop was found the postal stamp: found open and officially sealed—F.K.G. ––––––––––

Collected Writings VOLUME VII August, 1887

RE-CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES 345

RE-CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES

[The Theosophist, Vol. VIII, No. 95, August, 1887, pp. 651-55]

In the May Theosophist (Vol. VIII, 1887) I find the first part of a long explanatory article, by Mr. Subba Row,* in which the able author has gone to the trouble of dissecting almost everything I have written for the last ten years, upon the subject under review.

My first thought was, to leave his “answer” without reply. Upon reading it carefully over, however, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps it would not be safe to do so. The article in question is a manifesto. I am not allowed to labour any longer under the impression that it was only an apparent disagreement. Those members and ex-members of our Society who had rejoiced at Mr. Subba Row’s remarks were consequently right in their conclusions, and I—wrong. As I do not admit—in our case, at any rate—that “a house divided against itself” must fall, for the Theosophical Society can never fall so long as its foundation is very strong, I regard the disagreement, even if real, as of no great or vital importance. Yet, were I to fail to answer the strictures in question, it would be immediately inferred that I was silenced by the arguments; or, worse, that I had expounded a tenet which had no basis.

Before I say anything further upon the main subject, however, I must express my surprise at finding the learned author referring to me continually as his “critic.” I have never criticized him, nor his teachings, whether orally, or in print. I had simply expressed regret at finding in The Theosophist words calculated, as I then thought, to create false impressions. The position assumed by the lecturer on the Gita was as unexpected as it was new to me, and my remarks were meant to be as friendly as I could make

–––––––––– * [This article is entitled “The Constitution of the Microcosm” and is concluded in the August issue of The Theosophist, 1887. —Compiler.] ––––––––––

346 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

them. Nor am I actuated even now by any other feelings. I can only regret, and nothing more, that such new developments of ideas should occur just now, after nearly seven years of tacit, if not actual, agreement. Nor do I find on page 450 of the April Theosophist in my footnote anything that should imply, even remotely, least of all “probably,” that I endorse the views that “a slur was thrown on the original teachings.” I had said that “some (Theosophists) argued that it looked like a slur.” As for myself, I have too much reverence for the “original” TEACHERS to ever admit that anything said or done, could ever be “a slur” upon their teachings. But if I, personally, am made out “the original expounder,” there can be no slur whatever. It is, at the worst, a disagreement in personal views. Everyone is free in the Theosophical Society to give full expression to his own ideas—I among the rest; especially when I know that those views are those of trans-Himalayan esotericism, if not of cis-Himalayan esoteric Brahmanism, as I am now told squarely—for the first time. The words written by me in the footnote, therefore—“Of course those who do not hold to the old school of Aryan and Arhat Adepts are in no way bound to adopt the septenary classification”—were never meant for Mr. Subba Row. They applied most innocently, and as I thought liberally, to every and each member of our Association. Why my friend, Mr. T. Subba Row, should have applied them to himself is one of those mysterious combinations—evolved by my own karma no doubt—which pass my comprehension. To expect a Brahmin, a Vedantin (whether an occultist or otherwise) to accept in their dead-letter the tenets of Buddhist (even if Aryan) adepts, is like expecting a western Kabbalist, an Israelite by birth and views, to adhere to our Lord Buddha instead of to Moses. To charge me on such grounds with dogmatism and a desire to evolve “ an orthodox creed” out of tenets I have tried to explain to those who are interested in Buddhistic occultism, is rather hard. All this compels me to explain my past as well as my present position. As

RE-CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES 347

the second portion of Mr. Subba Row’s reply can hardly contain stronger charges than I find in the first, I ask permission to state that:—

I. Neither the original “Fragments of Occult Truth” nor yet Esoteric Buddhism, were ever meant to expound Brahminical philosophy, but that of the trans-Himalayan Arhats, as very correctly stated by Mr. Subba Row in his “ Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man”—“. . . it is extremely difficult to show [to the profane H.P.B.!] whether the Tibetans derived their doctrine from the ancient Rishis of India, or the ancient Brahmans learned their occult science from the adepts of Tibet; or again, whether the adepts of both countries professed originally the same doctrine and derived it from a common source . . . . . However that may be, the knowledge of the occult powers of nature possessed by the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis was learnt by the ancient adepts of India and was appended by them to the esoteric doctrine taught by the residents of the sacred Island [Shambha-la]. The Tibetan adepts, however, have not accepted this addition to their esoteric doctrine. . . . .”Thus, the readers of The Theosophist were told from the first (in 1882) that they “should expect to find a difference between the two doctrines.” One of the said “differences” is found in the exoteric exposition, or form of presentation of the seven-fold principle in man. II. Though the fundamental doctrines of Occultism and Esoteric philosophy are one and the same the world over, and that the secret meaning under the outward shell of every old religion—however much they may conflict in appearance—is the outcome of, and proceeds from, the universal WISDOM-RELIGION—the modes of thought and of its expression must necessarily differ. There are Sanskrit words used—“Jiva,” for one—by trans-Himalayan adepts, whose meaning differs greatly in verbal applications, from the meaning it has among Brahmans in India.

III. I have never boasted of any knowledge of Sanskrit, and, when I came to India last, in 1879, knew very superficially the philosophies of the six schools of

348 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

Brahmanism. I never pretended to teach Sanskrit or explain Occultism in that language. I claimed to know the esoteric philosophy of the trans-Himalayan Occultists and no more. What I knew again, was that the philosophy of the ancient Dwijas and Initiates did not, nor could it differ essentially from the esotericism of the “Wisdom-religion,” any more than ancient Zoroastrianism, Hermetic philosophy, or Chaldean Kabbala could do so. I have tried to prove it by rendering the technical terms used by the Tibetan Arhats of things and principles, as adopted in trans-Himalayan teaching (and which when given to Mr. Sinnett and others without their Sanskrit or European equivalents, remained to them unintelligible, as they would to all in India)—in terms used in Brahmanical philosophy. I may have failed to do so correctly, very likely I have, and made mistakes—I never claimed infallibility—but this is no reason why the sevenfold division should be regarded as “unscientific.” That it was puzzling I had already admitted, yet, once properly explained, it is the right one, though, in transcendental metaphysics, the quaternary may do as well. In my writings in The Theosophist I have always consulted learned and (even not very learned) Sanskrit-speaking Brahmans, giving credit to every one of them for knowing the value of Sanskrit terms better than I did. The question then is not, whether I may or may not have made use of wrong Sanskrit terms, but whether the occult tenets expounded through me are the right ones—at any rate those of the “Aryan-Chaldeo-Tibetan doctrine” as we call the “universal Wisdom-religion.” (See Five Years of Theosophy, 1st note, to Mr. Subba Row’s “Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man,” pp. 177-79.)*

IV. When saying that the seven-fold classification of principles is absolutely necessary to explain post-mortem phenomena, I repeat only that which I had always said and

–––––––––– * [Subba Row’s essay was originally published in The Theosophist, Vol. III, Jan., 1882, pp. 93-99, and was entitled, “The Aryan-Arhat Esoteric Tenets on the Sevenfold Principle in Man.”—Compiler.] ––––––––––

RE-CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES 349

that which every mystic will understand. “. . . Once . . . . we pass from the plane of pure subjective [or metaphysical, hence purely theoretical] reasoning on esoteric matters to that of practical demonstration in Occultism, wherein each [lower] principle and attribute has to be analyzed and defined in its application to the phenomena of daily and especially of post-mortem life [that of spooks and piśachas], the sevenfold classification is the right one.” These are my words, which every spiritualist will understand. Vedantin metaphysicians, denying as they do objective reality or importance even to our physical body, are not likely to lose their time in dividing the lower principles in man, the compound aspects and nature of the phantom of that body. Practical occultism does; and it is one of the duties of those Theosophists who study occultism to warn their brethren of the dangers incurred by those who know nothing of the real nature of those apparitions: to warn them that a shell is not “spirit.” This statement of mine I find qualified as “simply absurd.” Having never regarded as absurd anything said or written by Mr. Subba Row, I could not retaliate even if I would, I can only pronounce the epithet, let us say—unkind, and demur to the qualification. Had the author to face “practical demonstration” in spiritual phenomena and “materializations of spirits,” so called, he would soon find that his four principles could never cover the ground of this kind of phenomena. Even the lower aspect of the principle of manas (physical brain, or its post-mortem auric survival) and of kama rupa are hardly sufficient to explain the seemingly intelligent and spiritual principles (bhut or elements) that manifest through mediums.

V. It is not consistent with fact and truth to charge me, “the original [?] exponent herself,” with changing my conceptions about the nature of principles. “I have never changed them, nor could I do so.” In this I claim my right too, as Mr. Subba Row does, to my evidence being “the best and most direct evidence available as regards my own states of consciousness.” I may have used wrong Sanskrit expressions (and even wrong and clumsily

350 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

put English sentences, for the matter of that)—while trying to blend the Arhat with the Brahmanical occult tenets. As to those conceptions, my “four principles” have to disintegrate and vanish in the air, before any amount of criticism can make me regard my ten fingers as only four; although metaphysically, I am fully prepared to admit that they exist only in my own mayavic perceptions and states of consciousness.

VI. Mr. Subba Row, taking hold of Esoteric Buddhism, “The Elixir of Life” and Man,* is pleased to father all their sins of omission and commission on the “Original Expounder.” This is hardly fair. The first work was written absolutely without my knowledge, and as the author understood those teachings from letters he had received, what have I to do with them? “The Elixir of Life” was written by its author under direct dictation, or inspection, in his own house, in a far away country, in which I had never been till two years later † Finally Man was entirely rewritten by one of the two “chelas” and from the same materials as those used by Mr. Sinnett for Esoteric Buddhism; the two having understood the teachings, each in his own way. What had I to do with the “states of consciousness” of the three authors, two of whom wrote in England while I was in India? He may attribute to the lack of scientific precision in the “original teachings,” there being “a jumble.” No one

––––––––––– * [Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. By Two Chelas in The Theosophical Society. London: Reeves and Turner, 1885; 2nd ed., 1887. The writers were Mrs. Laura Langford Holloway and Mohini Mohun Chatterji. H.P.B.’s notes embodying a large number of corrections intended for a second ed. of this work, but not incorporated therein, can be found in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 254-61. Consult therein pp. 93 and 245 also.—Compiler.] † [Consult long footnote on pp. 242-43 of Volume VI in the present Series, for Col. Olcott’s account of the writing of “The Elixir of Life,” which does not seem to tally with the above statement. The student is invited to figure out for himself the possible reason for this discrepancy.—Compiler.] ––––––––––

RE-CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES 351

would accuse Mr. Subba Row’s Bhagavad Gita lectures of any such defects. Yet, I have already heard three or four intelligent persons among our members expounding the said three lectures (those which have already appeared)—in three different and diametrically opposite ways.

This will do, I believe. The Secret Doctrine will contain, no doubt, still more heterodox statements from the Brahminical view. No one is forced to accept my opinions or teachings in the Theosophical Society, one of the rules of which enforces only mutual tolerance for religious views. Our body is entirely unsectarian and “only exacts from each member that toleration of the beliefs of others which he desires . . . . in regard to his own faith.”

Most of us have been playing truants to this golden rule as to all others: more’s the pity. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

END OF VOLUME VII

Collected Writings VOLUME VII xxiv BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY

OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF H. P. BLAVATSKY AND COL. HENRY S. OLCOTT, FROM JANUARY, 1886, TO SEPTEMBER, 1887, INCLUSIVE

(the period to which the material in the present volume belongs)

1 8 8 6

January (early)—Approximate time when Dr. Wm. Hübbe-Schleiden received the two important letters from Masters K.H. and M., concerning the authorship of The Secret Doctrine (LMW., II, Nos. 69 and 70; Rem., 111, 113).

January (early)—Approx. time when an offer was made to H. P. B. to write exclusively for Katkov and the Russian periodicals. Considerable uncertainty as to time of this. (See Rem., 48; LBS., 173; Theos., XLVIII, July, 1926, p. 458, for letter from H. P. B. to Khandalavala, March 1885).

January (early)—Approx. time when H. P. B. makes a Will; not referred to later (ED., 85).

January (early)—Approx. time when H. P. B. wrote a letter to Dr. Franz Hartmann embodying statements re Damodar's whereabouts (Path, X, Feb., 1896; same in Theos. Quarterly, April 1928).

Jan. 1—H. P. B. writes to Sinnett enclosing a very strong pronouncement concerning the disclosures of the S. P. R. which she entitled: “To Theosophists and Men of Honour.” (LBS., LVII, 134.)

Jan. 1—Col. Olcott turns the first sod for the Sanskrit Library and Museum at Adyar, as the result of a strong impulse (ODL., III, 336; Diaries).

Jan. 6—H. P. B. writes to Olcott on the SPR Report, and makes important statements concerning the writing of Isis Unveiled, her English and K.H.'s role in it. (Theos., August, 1931.)

Jan. 14—H. P. B. writes a somewhat “toned-down” Protest against the SPR Report; it is published later in Sinnett's pamphlet, The “Occult World” Phenomena and the Society for Psychical Research (London: George Redway, 1886, 60 pp.).

Jan. 24—Date of an important letter written by H. P. B. to Mrs. Marie Gebhard, on the production of phenomena of precipitation, etc. (LBS., 346; Path, March 1893, for one version; and ETM., Introd., for another version).

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY xxv January—Approx. time when H. P. B. wrote to Sinnett, enclosing medical certificate from Dr. Oppenheimer (LBS., LXXIV, 177).

Jan. 27—Col. Olcott and C. W. Leadbeater sail for Ceylon, on a prolonged lecture tour. Buddhist Flag is established (ODL., III, 351-52).

Jan. or Feb.,—Sinnetts visit H. P. B. at Würzburg. Stay three weeks; they are there at the same time as Nadyezhda A. de Fadeyev and “the Soloviovs.” Sinnett goes over dates, etc. for his Incidents; they agree on the title (ED., 83-84). Apparently Sinnett leaves first; Mrs. S. stays longer H. P. B. completes a considerable portion of Vol. I of S. D., and plans to send it to Adyar (ODL., III, 366).

Feb. 7—Letter from Ernst Schutze, Handwriting Expert, to G. Gebhard, enclosing his testimony (LBS., CLXXXIII, 348; Inc., 323).

Feb. (prob. before 16th)-Approx. date of the famous “My Confession” Letter from H. P. B. to Vsevolod Soloviov (MPI., orig. ed., 213-16; transl., 176-81; see pp. 220 and 188 resp., for date).

Feb. 16 (possibly old style!)-Vsevolod Solovyov resigns his membership in the T.S. (MPl., orig. ed., 220; transl., 188).

March—Approx. time when Vsevolod Soloviov went back to Russia (MPI., orig. ed., 223, 225, 227; trans., 190-91).

March 3—H. P. B. has finished some 300 pages of foolscap of her Secret Doctrine (LBS., 194-95).

April 3—Important letter from H. P. B. to Dr. Franz Hartmann, in which she says: “I was sent to America on purpose. . .” (Path, X, March, 1896; also Theos. Quarterly, April 1928).

April 10—Walter Gebhard commits suicide (ODL., III, 361; LBS., 299-300; and 300-301).

April—Dr. F. Hartmann visits H. P. B. at Würzburg (Footnote by Hartmann in Theos. Quarterly, April 1928, p. 322).

April (before 20th)—Miss Kislingbury visits H. P. B. at Würzburg (Rem., 59; LBS., 302).

April—W. Q,. Judge starts publication of The Path at New York.

May 1 (or a few days before)—Marie Gebhard and Gustav Gebhard come to visit H. P. B. at Würzburg (Rem., 59; LBS., 207).

May 5—H. S. Olcott returns to Adyar after trip to Ceylon and has long talk with T. Subba Row on May 6th. The latter is in a very inimical state of mind, objects to H. P. B.'s return to India (ODL., III, 359-60; Ransom, 232). xxvi BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

May 8—Approx. date when H. P. B. left Würzburg for Ostende; accompanied by Miss Kislingbury; Countess Wachtmeister leaves with Marie Gebhard to visit Dr. Hartmann at Kempten, Austria (Rem., 60, where no date is given; LBS., 302; H. P. B.'s letter to Hartmann, Apr. 3, 1886, where she says she will leave on the 10th). Having arrived at Cologne, H. P. B. is persuaded by Mr. Gebhard to go to Elberfeld for a visit with them (Rem., 61).

May (about 8th, or earlier)—H. P. B. sent part of the S. D. MSS. to Adyar, just before leaving Würzburg (Rem., 66).

May 10—H. P. B. slips on the parquet of her bedroom at Elberfeld; sprains her ankle, hurts leg (Rem., 61; .LBS., 213; Letter from H. P. B. to Olcott, dated Ostende, July 14, 1886, publ. in Theos., May, 1908).

May (middle)—Approx. time when Vera P. de Zhelihovsky (H. P. B.'s sister) and her daughter Vera V., arrive at Elberfeld on a visit (Rem., 61, 105, 107; LBS., 213).

May 27—Col. Olcott begins translating into English Adolphe d'Assier's work, L'Humanité posthume; finishes, June 24th (ODL., III, 363).

May (last days) —Babajee returns to Elberfeld from London (Letter from him to judge; Theos. Forum, IV, July, 1933).

June 6—Council of the T. S. meets at Adyar and approves Olcott's recommendation to the effect that the American Board of Control should be re-organized as a General Council of the Society in America. Charter granted to the American Section, and William Quan Judge elected permanent General Secretary and Treasurer (ODL., III, 364; Ransom, 237). This comes into actual operation in America October 30th, at Convention held at Dr. J. D. Buck's residence in Cincinnati, Ohio.

June—Arthur Gebhard's article “A Word to Brother Theosophists” (orig. publ. in The Occult Word, Rochester, N.Y.) appears in The Theosophist, VII, Suppl. to June, 1886, pp. cxxxiv-vii, with various accusations and criticisms.

July 8—Date on which H. P. B. appears to have left Elberfeld for Ostende, with her sister and niece, via Brussels (Letter to Olcott, July 14, 1886). May have gone to Paris on her way (LBS., 214). Upon arrival at Ostende, stops at Villa Nova, 10, Boulevard Van Isgham.

July (early)—The Sinnetts come on a visit to Ostende (letter from H. P. B. to Arthur Gebhard).

July 14—Madame de Zhelihovsky and daughter go back to Russia (H. P. B.'s letter to Olcott of same date, Theos., XXIX, May, 1908) .

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY xxvii

July 17—Col. Olcott leaves Madras for the hill station of Bangalore and other places, lecturing, etc. Returns home August 2nd, his birthday (The Theosophist, Vol. VII, Suppl. to August, 1886, p. cxliii; ODL., III, 373-79, where date of May 17 is given by mistake).

July ?—Important letter from H. P. B. to W. Q.. Judge, concerning, taking her place at Adyar, etc. (Ransom, 237; ODL., III, 379).

July—Countess C. Wachtmeister returns to Sweden (Rem., 61). August (middle)—Mohini goes to visit H. P. B. at Ostende (LBS., 351); Arthur Gebhard comes also; later on, Miss Bates (LBS., 217; letter of H. P. B. to judge, Jan. 27, 1887, as well as Aug. 22, 1886). Her address then appears to be 17, rue d'Ouest.

August (latter part)—Madame Marie Gebhard comes on a visit to Ostende (LBS., 219).

August (?)—Countess C. Wachtmeister joins H. P. B. at Ostende (Rem., 64).

September 7—H. S. Olcott carries Isis Unveiled as first book, into the new Library room at Adyar (ODL., III, 380).

Sept. 23—H. P. B. writing to Olcott says she sent him MSS of the S.D. through Madame Gebhard, who has gone back to Elberfeld. This must be MSS in addition to what was sent at an earlier date (Theos., March 1925).

Sept. 23—Date appearing on the Pronouncement issued by Arthur Gebhard and Mohini M. Chatterji from London, under the title of “A Few Words on the Theosophical Organization” embodying various serious criticisms and complaints.

October 3—H. P. B. answers the above Pronouncement and sends it to Sinnett (LBS., 223). It never was published in her life-time.

Oct. 3—Important letter from H. P. B. to W. Q,. Judge re the “Nirmânakâya” in him (Theos. Forum, III, Aug., 1932).

Oct. 5-8—Dr. Anna Bonus Kingsford and Edward Maitland visit H. P. B, at Ostende (LBS., 220, 224; AK., II, p. 276; Lucifer, XIII, Feb., 1894, p. 517).

Oct. 17—Council meeting held at Adyar to decide upon investment of the Society's capital and the assignment by H. P. B. of whatever interests she had in Adyar property to Col. Olcott, as President (Ransom, 233-34).

November—F. K. Gaboriau and “Amaravella” visit H. P. B, at Ostende (Rem., 64; Lucifer, V, Oct., 1889, p. 166). xxviii BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

December (first week or so)—MSS of Vol. I of the S.D. seems to have reached Adyar. T. Subba Row refuses to go over it (ODL, III, 385). Sinnett's Incidents arrive also at the time (Diaries). Must have been published by George Redway sometime in the Fall of 1886.

Dec. 28—Adyar Library opened, during Convention (ODL., III, 388).

Dec. 31—H. P. B. sees in a vision the fire in Madras Fair Grounds (see her letter to Olcott, Jan. 4, 1887, Theos., LII, Aug., 1931).

1 8 8 7 January 21—Approx. date when Douglass Edward Fawcett visited H. P. B. at Ostende (LBS., 227).

Jan. 22—H. S. Olcott sails for Ceylon on a lecture tour; began compiling on tour The Golden Rules of Buddhism (ODL., III, 399, 405).

January (late) or early Feb.—Gerard Brown Finch and Bertram Keightley of London go to Ostende to visit H. P. B. Dr. Archibald Keightley seems to have gone also, possibly somewhat later. Urgently enjoin H. P. B. to move to London. Come over to Ostende for a second time a few weeks later (Rem., 89, 78, 90, 97; Light, IX, June 8, 1889, p. 278).

February 25—H. S. O. starts on a protracted lecture trip through Western India and the Northern Provinces; will be away until October (ODL., III, 407-38).

February—Mohini M. Chatterji goes to America.

March (ab. last week)—H. P. B. gravely ill at Ostende. Kidney infection, state of lethargy; unconscious for hours. Dr. Ashton Ellis comes from London; also Mrs. Marie Gebhard. The Master comes and gives H. P. B. a choice between dying and finishing the S.D. Gives her a preview of future troubles she will have in England. H. P. B. makes a Will (Rem., 71-75; Ransom, 238; H. P. B.'s Letter to judge, May 7, 1887; H. P. B.'s Letter to her relatives, The Path, X, Sept., 1895, pp. 171-73).

April 1—Date appearing on a handwritten document in which H. P. B. gives directions to Countess C. Wachtmeister to take her body to London after her death (original in the Archives of Theosophia Journal, Los Angeles, California).

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY xxix

May 1—H. P. B. goes to London, staying at Mabel Collins' home; address on her Letter to judge is: Maycot, Crownhill, Upper Norwood, London, (ED., 88; Ransom, 239; The Path, VII, 246-47).

May 19—Blavatsky Lodge organized and inaugural meeting held in H. P. B.'s small quarters at Maycot (Ransom, 239; Rem., 79; ED., 88; H. P. B.'s Letter to H. S. O., May 25, 1887, in ODL., IV, 25).

September (early)—Countess Wachtmeister goes to London and joins H. P. B. at Maycot, just prior to the move (Rem., 80-81).

September (early)—H. P. B. moves to 17, Lansdowne Road, Holland Park.

September—Mohini M. Chatterji sails for India from Boston (Path, II, 223).

September (or later)—Theosophical Publishing Company organized, with a Capital of £ 1,500 (Ransom, 239).

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS

AK—Anna Kingsford. Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work, by Edward Maitland. 2 vols. Ill. London: George Redway, 1896. 3rd ed., J. M. Watkins, 1913.

Blech—Contribution à 1'Histoire de la Société Théosophique en France, Charles Blech. Paris: Éditions Adyar, 1933.

Diaries—The Diaries of Col. Henry S. Olcott, in the Adyar Archives.

ED—The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe, A. P. Sinnett. London: Theos. Publishing House, Ltd., 1922, 126 pp.

ETM—The Early Teachings of the Masters: 1881-1883. Edited by C. Jinarâjadâsa. Chicago: The Theosophical Press, 1923, 245 pp.

Inc.—Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, A. P. Sinnett. London: George Redway; New York: J. W. Bouton, 1886. xxii, 324 pp.

LBS—The Letters o f H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, and Other Miscellaneous Letters. Transcribed, Compiled, and with an Introd. by A. T. Barker. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1924. xvi, 404 pp.

LMW—Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. Transcribed and Annotated by C. Jinarâjadâsa. With a Foreword by Annie Besant. 1st Series, Adyar, Madras: Theos. Publ. House, 1919. 124 pp.; 2nd ed., 1923; 3rd ed., 1945; 4th ed., with new and additional Letters (1870-1900), 1948. viii, 220 pp. IInd Series, Adyar: Theos. Publ. House, 1925; and Chicago: Theos. Press, 1926. xxx BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

MPI—A Modern Priestess of Isis. Abridged and Translated on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research from the Russian of Vsevolod S. Soloviov, by Walter Leaf, Litt. D., with Appendices. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., and New York: 15 East 16th St., 1895.

—The original Russian work, entitled, Sovremennaya zhritza Isidi, appeared at St. Petersburg in 1893, and was issued in 2nd ed. by N. F. Mertz, 1904. It contained 342 pages, and was somewhat more complete than the English translation.—Originally, this material appeared serially in the Russkiy Vestnik (Russian Messenger), Vols. 218-220, 222-223, between Feb. and Dec., 1892.

ODL—Old Diary Leaves, Henry Steel Olcott. Third Series, 1883-87. London: The Theos. Publ. Society; Madras: Office of The Theosophist, 1904.

Ransom—A Short History of The Theosophical Society. Compiled by Josephine Ransom. With a Preface by G. S. Arundale. Adyar, Madras: Theos. Publ. House, 1938. xii, 591 pp.

Rem.—Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and “The Secret Doctrine.” Countess Constance Wachtmeister and Others. London: Theos. Publ. Society, 1893. 162 pp.

Theos.—The Theosophist, published at Madras, India, beginning with October, 1879. In progress. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

H. P. B. AT “MAYCOT,” NORWOOD, LONDON, IN 1887 Collected Writings VOLUME VII

ALFRED PERCY SINNETT 1840-1921 Reproduced from Isabel de Steiger’s Memorabilia. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

COMMANDANT D. A. COURMES French Naval Officer and loyal friend of the Founders in the early days of the Movement. Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 370 Collected Writings VOLUME VII

ARTHUR HENRY PAISLEY GEBHARD-L’ESTRANGE 1885-1944 Courtesy of his widow, Mme. Marie-Josephe Gebhard-L’Estrange. (See Vol. VI, pp. 435-36, for biographical data) Collected Writings VOLUME VII

GEORGE R. S. MEAD 1863-1933 Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 548. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

H. P. B. AT HER DESK, 17, LANSDOWNE ROAD, LONDON This picture was taken one morning in the Fall of 1887, just as she was about to begin her day’s work. The sheet of paper in front of her is part of the MSS of The Secret Doctrine, other sheets lying about. Her famous Matara tobacco basket is just beyond her hand. The pen she holds is an American gold pen given to her by a New York Theosophist and made by John Foley. This likeness was originally published in The Path, New York, Vol. VII, May, 1892, p. 39. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

INTERIOR AT 17, LANSDOWNE ROAD, LONDON The view of this room is taken from the corner near H. P. B.’s desk. The little round table was used by her for her frugal breakfasts. The painting of Master M. is most likely the copy made by Hermann Schmiechen from his own original, before the latter was taken by Col. H. S. Olcott to Adyar. Reproduced from an old print. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

COUNTESS CONSTANCE GEORGINA LOUISE WACHTMEISTER 1838-1910 Courtesy of Axel Fredenholm, Gothenburg, Sweden. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

DR. ANNIE BESANT, COL. HENRY S. OLCOTT, & WILLIAM QUAN JUDGE In Garden of 19, Avenue Road, London Reproduced from Col. H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, Vol. IV, p. 384. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

MARIE, COUNTESS OF CAITHNESS, DUCHESSE DE POMAR Reproduced from Emma Hardinge Britten’s work, Nineteenth Century Miracles, facing p. 90. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

DR. WILLIAM HÜBBE-SCHLEIDEN From a photograph supplied by Mme. Gretchen Boggiani-Wagner, whose father was a cousin of the Doctor. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

MADAME ISABEL DE STEIGER 1836-1927 Reproduced from her work entitled Memorabilia: Reminiscences of a Woman Artist and Writer, London, Rider & Co. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF H. P. B.’s MANUSCRIPTS CONCERNING THE “ORIGINAL PROGRAMME” Collected Writings VOLUME VII

CRUCIFIXION IN SPACE From Edward Moor, The Hindoo Pantheon, Plate 98, First ed., London, 1810. Collected Writings VOLUME VII

FACSIMILE OF H.P.B.’S INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNTESS CONSTANCE WACHTMEISTER